Hungry Eyes
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: Destiel, Dirty Dancing AU. Castiel's family vacations in the Catskills, Castiel somehow winds up behind the scenes of the resort, involved witht he employee's, one of whom is trying very hard to keep something hidden. You'll only need one guess.
1. Chapter 1

_No idea if I should, or shall continue this – but I had to write it just to get it out of my head._

Castiel looked out of the back window of the old ford, the road behind them, single lane and dull, stretched backwards all the way to the highway off ramp. All the way back across the state to the little three bedroom house they'd left several hours ago. The radio plays something vaguely cheery, and he catches the occasional lyric '...told my girl we had to break up...call my bluff...'

Out the side window he could see only trees, the verge alongside the road and a fence. The Catskill Mountains in all their summer glory. To his right, Anna was leaning back against the leather seat, carefully, so as not to wrinkle her white summer dress, window rolled up despite the heat to preserve the style to her long red hair. Castiel wriggled on the seat, feeling his shirt sticking to his back, the plain, black pants soaking up the heat from the sun coming through the glass.

The car sped onwards, his parents looking out onto the road in front – the road to Kellerman's, the holiday destination of that season.

Castiel flicked through the pages of his book, trying to soak up the ideals of the monastic protests in Tibet – it was too hot, he could feel the sweat blooming under the cotton of his shirt. Beading under his waistband and the tucked shirt tails, trickling down his skin and into the furrow at the base of his spine, prickling lower. He closes his eyes and tries to relax into the seat.

"They'll be lots of girls at the mixer tonight." His mother chirrups, glancing at him via the rear-view mirror. Her eyebrows and eyes are the only things visible, one set of eyebrows fiercely plucked, the eyes below outlined modestly and shadowed pale gold. The eyes are blue, like his, and fixing him with a pointed look.

He makes a noncommittally expression, returns to the pages of his book.

"Be sure to have fun Castiel." His mother persists. His father casts a fond look his way, reflected in the small rectangle of glass.

"He'll have a great time, won't you son?" Michael rumbles cajolingly. "Take a nice girl out for a round or two on the green, maybe go out on the lake." Beside him, Rachel smiles, appeased by this idea.

Castiel feels sweat gathering under his fingers, dampening the pages as he grips the book in his lap.

"Yes sir." He says with the barest of smiles.

Anna adjusts the strap of her bra, poking it out of sight under her small lace cardigan. The back of the car smells like her perfume, powdery like her skin and the stiff white cotton of her bra, moulding the contours of her breasts into protruding triangles under the dress. She looks like the 'nice girls' he is expected to meet. Though Anna is the only girl he has any real experience of, and obviously he does not find her exciting, though she is attractive, he supposes. She catches him staring and frowns at him, her freak of a brother in the outmoded clothes of his boyhood – shirt and pants nowhere near as fashionable as the golf shirts and slacks of the boys she expects to meet this summer.

She takes out her purse, a small silk pouch, and redoes her lipstick in a small mirror.

They arrive in the middle of the day, boys his own age are meandering on the close cut grass in their shorts and shirts, some in blazers and slacks despite the heat. He can see the far off shimmer of the lake and the blinding white paintwork of the porch that wraps around the three story red brick lodge that serves as the main house. From this far off the girls sitting in the shade there are lace handkerchiefs of dressed figures, their cries bird-like as they greet each other from a distance. Visor and twin set wearing women accompany their husbands and their caddy's towards the distant coloured flags of the golf course.

Castiel gets out of the car and closes the door behind him. The air is fresh at least, the sun beating down as he circles the car and attempts to open the scorching metal of the trunk. John Kellerman himself approaches, seemingly larger than life in his white blazer and espadrilles. Michael greets his most prized patient with a handshake, and a uniformed porter (ushered in by John's outstretched hand) opens the trunk before Castiel gets a chance, removing his parents suitcase, Castiel's own modest case, and Anna's four vanity cases and shoe bags.

Anna herself slides gracefully from the sticky interior of the ford and stands, immaculate and white, beside the porter, smiling softly with her greased, pink, lips. John claps the porter on the back.

"Hurry those up to the cabin Gabriel." John turns back to Michael and Rachel, "Trust me, you're going to have the best vacation of your lives. This season we've got the best entertainments we've have for years."

Michael and Rachel make approving noises. Anna bats her painted lashes at him. Castiel helps with the cases.

He unpacks in his room. Shirts in one drawer, pants in another, shoes at the foot of the bed and books arranged in order of size on the table beside the single bed. The bed is clearly meant for someone younger than himself, it's child sized shape and sheets printed with boats and gulls both seem at odds with a seventeen year old occupant. He wonders briefly what his room at Stanford will be like, when he takes to it in the fall.

Anna's voice drifts through the wall – she has not brought enough outfits, or the shoes that would render her available outfits, 'cute enough'. Castiel sits on the child sized bed and looks at a faded print on the wall – two birds on a branch that has been painted unattached to anything, floating on the square of water colour paper in its gold frame.

Anna's voice rises and he hears the words 'coral shoes'.

Castiel looks at nothing.

By the time it has grown dark and cooler, the lights strung across the main houses porch lit up and visible from their own private lodge in the woods, Castiel has changed into a dark green cardigan style sweater over a clean white shirt and another pair of black pants. He calls in on his parents, who are dressing for dinner at the lodge with Anna, Lucifer and sundry other acquaintances.

"I'm going for a walk." He announces, though it's more of a question, which receives a negative answer.

"John specifically enthused about you meeting his son." His mother chides, smoothing her layers of pale silk summer dress and buttoning her thin cardigan. "Sam's going to Stanford in the fall, it might be nice for you to have a friend." She looks to her husband for support.

"You could do a lot worse." Michael says jovially, straightening his tie. "He seems a solid kind of guy."

Castiel folds to their instruction and changes once more into a jacket and tie.

As a foursome they walk across the darkened lawn, taking the meandering stone path towards the main house. They are greeted by the light of both candles and electric sconces, the sounds of delicate cutlery on china, the tinkling of glass as wine is poured. Castiel takes his seat when it's pulled out for him, unfolding his napkin and spreading it in his lap. Sam sits across the table from him, a clone of his father in a dinner jacket and tie, medium length brown hair hanging in bangs over his eyes. Castiel sips from his water glass and eats his food when it arrives in a neat triad of boiled potato, grilled chicken and green beans.

After dinner he's obliged to meet Sam's fiancé, Jessica, and to take a turn around the dance floor with her friend Megan – a ripe candidate for marriage as foisted on him by strangers. Part way through the ordeal, a dark haired woman and a man slightly taller than himself, take to the floor. Their dancing, a mambo, is much better than anything the holidaying men and women can hope to achieve. Castiel is struck by the woman's graceful movements, the slender curve of her body as he twists to follow the lead of the man. Her partner indeed, shows amazing talent for the dance, focused entirely on her as he lifts and sweeps her around the small space that the other dancers have cleared for this display.

In passing Sam on the floor he pauses, excusing himself from Megan and accosts John's son.

"Who are they?" he asks, the first words he's uttered in genuine interest all evening.

"The dance people." Sam says, frowning at them slightly as they continue to cavort in perfect rhythm. "They're suppose to be entertaining the guests though, not showing off." He catches Castiel's surprised look. "They're here to sell lessons." He explains. He mimes a 'cut it out' gesture at the male and a pair of green eyes glare back before the man breaks from his partner and ropes one of the guests in to engage in a more sedate configuration.

Sam shakes his head to himself.

"That's Dean." He tells Castiel, clearly seeking some sympathy from having to supervise such insolent underlings. "Trouble everywhere he goes – always showing off with Lisa and trying to change the line up for the evening." He sighs. "Takes the inch and goes for the mile. I don't know why my father keeps him on." Jessica comes to his side. "Excuse me Castiel." He smiles at his fiancé and leads her back to the floor.

At the end of the dance, once the band has been applauded, Sam finds Castiel again and asks him, within earshot of his parents, whether he wouldn't mind helping with the evening entertainments.

Under his mother's pleading eyes and his father's cajoling smile he is forced to agree.

So he spends half an house lying sideways and curled up in a box, with just his head protruding, as a middle aged man who smells of cough drops and whisky, pretends to saw him in half. At one point he closes his eyes to the stage lights and the cultured chortling of the audience, feeling the warmth of his body fill the box and the drumming of his own pulse in his temple.

He really wishes he wasn't here. In the box, on stage, at Kellerman's, in the Catskills, in the USA...on the whole planet. From a view point far far from where he is now he can see the spec that is Castiel Novak, a spec on a blot on a patch of green far below space.

In ten years he might well be a successful lawyer, campaigning for the rights of the downtrodden and helpless.

But he will still be just a spec.

After the activities he politely sidesteps an invitation to tour the facility with Sam, claiming fatigue and a need to get some sleep. He's left his parents to drink coffee with Michael, Anna to her flirtations with Lucifer, their waiter, and so he knows the cabin would be empty. He decides he'd rather not return to it in such a quiet state. He doesn't want to think anymore.

He walks without a destination, following the line of the trees until he happens on a woodchip path that does not show the same signs of zealous weeding as the rest. Following it he finds a small sign declaring the area 'Employees Only'. Castiel pauses for a moment, but continues regardless, it's just an area of woodland – surely there's nothing here that really necessitates a divide. He won't go into any buildings, he won't approach anyone.

He wanders for a while longer, enjoying the slight breeze and the silence under the canopy of trees. However his decision not to cause a nuisance to the staff is voided when he is approached suddenly by the short porter from earlier in the day, the man is however, now struggling with an armful of three large watermelons.

"You shouldn't be back here." Gabriel exclaims, he has a puppyish air of panicky remonstration, as if Castiel's presence here will surely be blamed on him for no good reason.

"I was just walking..." Castiel watches him wrangle with the round, bulbous fruit. "Would you like some help with those?"

"No." He denies bravely, as one melon fights to escape his grasp. Castiel takes it from him and Gabriel readjusts his hold on the remaining two. "Seriously, don't...just leave me to it." He looks slyly up at Castiel. "Shouldn't you be greasing wheels back at the main house? Getting in with Sam Kellerman?"

Castiel thrusts the watermelon back into Gabriel's arms, watching the shorter man totter backwards under the weight. Castiel turns as if to leave him to it.

"Wait!" Gabriel struggles the fruit, juggling them awkwardly against his chest. "If you help me with these...you saw nothing ok?" he looks back down the path edgily. "Your parents would kill you...and more importantly, John would kill me."

Castiel takes the melon back in mute acceptance.

Following Gabriel up the steps in the hillside towards the small employee lounge, knocks most of the breath out of him. So by the time they reach the doors and Gabriel careens through them, still laden with fruit, Castiel hasn't got a lot of air left in his lungs, they re-inflate rather suddenly when he gasps on the threshold.

He's never seen anything like this before.

There are so many couples in the one, tiny room. The air smelling like too many bodies pressed together in the latent summer heat as well as cigarette smoke and beer. Each couple is twisted together on the dance floor, the women straddling the thighs of their partners, hands searching under their clothing as they roll their hips seductively. The men gyrate back against them, rubbing and thrusting to the pulse of the music, rapid with drums and loud lyrics.

Castiel stands frozen for a minutes, Gabriel watches him with mild amusement.

"I know, right?" he almost yells over the music. "Can you imagine what the crowd at main house would make of this?" He looks Castiel up and down, nods his head at the unaccompanied women at the edge of the dance floor. "Want to try it?" Castiel shakes his head fiercely, still unable to tear his eyes away from the gyrating couples. Gabriel chuckles under his breath. "C'mon." He leads him through the crowd to the back of the room where the makeshift bar is set up. They deposit their melons and Gabriel hands him a slightly sticky bottle of beer.

For a while Castiel just watches them, these men and women dressed in undershirts, short skirts and enviably tight jeans. He watches them kiss, sharing breath and pressing their foreheads together, immodest bulges at the apex of the men's thighs, pressing into the almost uncovered clefts of the women. This is almost an...an orgy of the kind written of in newspapers under headlines about cults and moral degradation. Under the jazzy lyrics of the song he can hear ferocious whoops and cries of young people luxuriating in their freedom. He spots a coloured woman and a tall white man kissing furiously in the corner, another man openly sucking a bruise into another woman's neck.

He shifts uncertainly, uneasily, feeling like a nervous animal about to bolt.

The double doors fly open and the couple from the dance floor enter. The woman's luxuriant hair is unpinned and flowing freely over her bare shoulders, her bright green dress looking less like a ball gown and more like a whores outfit in this dingy outhouse of a building. The man is more disarrayed, his collar open, bow tie discarded, short unbuttoned to his waist where it's only half tucked into his black pants.

Castiel's eyes are drawn to him now because he looks so at ease, casting off the courtly grace and restrained passion of his dancing for an easy, lazy demeanour. He accepts a half drunk beer from a random dancer, takes a deep drink and turns to pull his partner, Lisa, out onto the floor. They press together openly, his hands on her waist as he raises her arms and writhes against him.

Castiel raises the beer to his lips automatically, swilling the bitter liquid as he watches them. The man, Dean, smiling, sultry and assuming as they rock together, groins and hands and backs and legs working in unison.

"They're good, right?" Gabriel shouts next to him. "That's my cousin." He looks admiringly out at Dean and Lisa. "You'd almost think they were a couple."

"They're not?" Castiel practically has to yell the question.

"No – they just act like it, I guess it's good for business."

Dean dances with Lisa until the climax of the song, then cheers with the rest of the employees and makes his way to the back of the room, searching out a drink. He catches sight of Castiel, frowns and turned to Gabriel.

"You brought him up here? The hell are you thinking?" He says, ignoring Castiel entirely.

"He'll keep quiet about it." Gabriel promises.

"He'll tell Sam and get us all fired." Dean insists.

"No I won't." Castiel puts in. Dean turns on him and glares.

"Better not." He growls with his head on one side.

Castiel flushes under that assessing gaze.

Then Dean does something unexpected, he catches at his hand and draws Castiel away from Gabriel, guiding him to the darker corner of the main floor. Gabriel watches them go with a raised eyebrow, then catches a glimpse of Kali, the hostess, drinking wine alone at the end of the bar.

Castiel goes willingly after Dean, and when the other man turns him and moves them together he only moves a little stiffly, uncertain of this dance, of the intentions to it.

"Will you relax." Dean half laughs, half chides. "Lots of girls in tonight...looking for a rich boy like you..." Dean presses their hips together, hands guiding the sharp jut of Castiel's in a slow, circular grind, raising Castiel's arms to link them behind his neck, drawing them closer. Castiel's lips form a soft 'O' of surprise, parted a little as he struggles to breath past his discomfort. "Give 'em something to look at." Dean murmurs, as if from a great distance. Sweat prickles on Castiel's skin, this time it has nothing to do with the heat. Their hips roll together, moving faster as the song increases tempo, making them exert effort, as Dean's breath chases unevenly over his face, smelling of beer, merging with the scent of his cologne.

Castiel feels, for the first time in all his memory, like a body rather than a mind.

The song ends and Dean moves away, slipping back into the crowd, leaving Castiel to cool off, and steady his racing pulse.


	2. Chapter 2

_17__th__ of May is my birthday, and I'm currently on my sick bed, so I took a little time out to write this. _

Castiel plays three rounds of golf with his sister, and on the third circuit of the course, Megan ('please call me Meg!') joins them. She's wearing the same things as his sister, plain white skirt, knee length, a cotton shirt and a patterned sweater vest. Her legs are pale, she has skin similar to his, resistant to tanning and able only to burn pink. Anna and Megan talk animatedly, black and red ponytails bouncing as they walk slightly ahead of him, the cant of Megan's hips suggesting that she is very aware of him walking behind her.

In the distance Lisa is running a booth where women are trying out wigs and make-up, costumes and props.

Dean is nowhere in sight.

Beneath his thin leather gloves, Castiel's hands feel itchy with sweat. He makes the course with an appallingly high par and frowns bad naturedly to himself as he stows his clubs and leaves the green, trailing his sister and her friend.

He goes for a walk, a long circular walk to work up an appetite for dinner, after which there will again be dancing on the main floor. And then another day will be over. He thinks about Stanford, about the classes he wants to take, whether to major in the economics of underdeveloped countries or to take on the mantle of law - the profession his parents would most approve of. His brogues scuff through the dry ghosts of last year's fall leaves as he makes his way under the trees, hands in his pockets.

He finds his way to the main house, where the waiters are setting up for luncheon, pouring water and setting chutneys and napkins out for the guests to make use of and then discard for their collection later. Anna's would be suitor Lucifer is amongst them.

Unseen by them, Castiel watches the white jacketed waiters perform their tasks from the veranda. John Kellerman sweeps in and the waiters line up as if they're performers in a show choir, a barbershop quartet. One is still holding a napkin, half folded into a swan.

"Afternoon." John booms authoritatively. "I believe I should go over the rules again." He continues in a voice that carries little joviality. "This is a family place, that means you keep your fingers out of the water, your hair out of the soup...and you show the guests a good time." He glares at the line of waiters. "That means the daughters...all of them, even the dogs. Take them out to the terrace, show them the stars..."

There's a minor kafuffle as the dancers arrive. Seven of them in off the shoulder shirts and leggings, Dean at the front in jeans and a black T-shirt, large dark glasses shielding his eyes from the light from the terrace windows.

John moves to intercept them.

"And you..." he raises his finger to point, Castiel thinks rather rudely, at Dean. "Different rules chuckles – you're here to entertain the guests, teach them the mambo, the waltz and nothing else. Hands off!" He practically snarls, he turns and storms out of Castiel's line of sight. "And try to show up on time, for once!" he yells back.

Dean smirks to himself.

Lucifer looks up from his basket of rolls, limp wristed as he unfurls a fresh covering for it. "Think you can keep that straight Dean? What you can and can't put your hands on?"

Castiel can't hear Dean's reply from behind the glass, but Lucifer draws back and Dean smirks again, dropping his jacket over a chair and stalking over to the stage.

Castiel walks away and tries to shake the feeling that he's a ghost, following on, looking in, but not really a part of anything here.

Dinner is the same ordeal as the previous night. It's almost like the story of Prometheus, only in this case he's the eagle, doomed to the same meal and the same company over and over again. He has the chicken and the green beans with a scoop of potatoes, a glass of water at the side of the plate. He listens half-heartedly to Anna talking about Lucifer, and his savings for medical school. He listens to Megan talk to his parents, and by extension, himself, about her family's holdings out in Oregon. Sam stops by their table to say good evening, his Father offers them his hopes that they are having an excellent vacation.

Castiel dances with Megan, with Anna and once around the floor with his mother before begging tiredness. Unfortunately, the tour he put off the previous evening, catches up with him.

Anna catches him just before Megan comes to lead him off.

"Cas..." she comes to a stop and rests her hands in their white gauze gloves on his own fingers. "You have to do something for me." she grins, pink lips and white teeth. "Tell Mommy and Daddy that I went to lie down, ok? Come check on me once, so they don't have to."

"Where are you actually going?" he asks, but his eyes have found Lucifer in his half opened waiting jacket, standing by the door in preparation to receive his sister.

"Up to the golf course, there's a pretty view from the fourth tee." Anna turns without getting his ascent and makes her escape with Lucifer.

He would worry for her, but he's snagged by Megan at that point, like a kitten with fine, grasping claws. She steers him from main house, outside and onwards, showing him the tennis courts and the kayaks stacked by the side of the lake. He thinks back to the speech he heard John giving, wonders if this is just a favour from the bosses son – a girl to pass the summer with. Bitter cynicism washes over him and he feels a little sick, the food like card and wax in his stomach.

He is a speck on the surface of the world. He holds on to that, that this life, his life, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if he feels like nothing – because he's so tiny he might as well be gone.

Halfway through their walk they spot Anna, trotting indignantly from the woods, she moves awkwardly and Castiel feels sickened by the idea that she might be limping, sore from being interfered with. He flinches from the idea, and Megan lays a comforting hand on his arm.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else." She murmurs.

Megan takes him to the kitchens, charming him with a smile and an offer of illicit cake, maybe a bottle of wine. She's talking at him, voice as shiny and sterile as the steel around them. Castiel only hears the sobbing because it's pitched so low, so far out of range of Megan's shrill chatter. He looks between the kitchen island and the cabinets.

Lisa is crouched on the floor, face bloated with crying, red eyed and biting down on the ball of her hand to keep the sobs in check. She's wearing her costume for that evening, a pale pink dress that washes her out in the shadow, making her look wan and lost.

He taps Megan on the shoulder.

"I think I should check on my sister." He says gently.

Megan seems put out. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." He sighs, casting one look back at Lisa, who looks up at him with tear starred eyes and a wobbling, uncertain mouth. He nods once, stiffly, and goes with Megan as far as the lodge before running, still in his dinner jacket, to the gazebo where Dean is dancing with one of his clients.

Castiel catches Gabriel's attention first, and spills his news with the half embarrassed urgency of one who isn't sure if what he has to say is important or not. Gabriel looks at him with shock, and this is gratifying, at least he isn't wasting anyone's time. Gabriel gets Dean away from the vulpine woman in her spangled white cocktail dress, and the three of them – because somehow Castiel is attached to this little drama, head back to the kitchens.

As they enter the sterile atmosphere, Castiel can feel the blood drumming through his veins from the run, the sweat of exertion prickling his skin. He wonders, in a brief snatch of unattended thought, why it is that at Kellerman's everything that makes him feel human, and alive, happens at night.

"Lisa?" Dean folds into a crouch beside his partner. "Lis...what is it?"

She leans towards his ear, sobs threatening to swallow her whole. Still, Castiel hears the word 'pregnant'.

What else is there that he needs to know? That one word is all the trouble a girl needs to be in, in order for sympathy and concern to be deserved.

"She's pregnant." Gabriel breathes beside him, as if he thinks Castiel hasn't heard. Castiel casts his eyes over Dean, looking ragged with his shirt untucked from the run and his hair blown about. Gabriel has said that they are not a couple, but perhaps this means that they are not married or engaged – but only having the kinds of trysts that might take place on a golf course, quickly and furtively in the night. He feels a little sick.

"What's he going to do about it?" he asks Gabriel, sotto voiced, and yet Dean hears and turns to glare at him.

"Oh, because it's mine, right? Right away you think it's mine." he looks both contemptuous and broken, and if Castiel has ever hated anyone it's this man, for making him feel so useless, so stupid as to mistake partners for lovers.

Between them they manage to cover for Lisa, Dean claims she's ill and Sam has no way of proving that this isn't the case. Though for a moment it seems as if the younger man might press the issue. They take Lisa back to her cabin and, against Castiel's better judgement (though he keeps silent on this point) they ply her with a strong dose of brandy.

"So...who was it?" Dean asks, one arm around Lisa's trembling shoulders.

"Luc."

Dean closes his eyes and sighs.

"Lucifer?" Castiel hazards.

"What is he still doing here?" Lisa snaps, gulping the last of the drink.

Dean ignores this outburst in favour of turning to Gabriel.

"What are we going to do?"

Gabriel seems to think for a moment, then comes across an idea which makes him freeze in awkwardness and indecision.

"I have a...well, a friend in the cleaning staff...she said she went to see a guy, about this, a couple of months ago."

"Great, so...you got a name?" Dean asks, somewhat bitterly.

"It costs two hundred and fifty dollars." Gabriel says in a soft, hopeless voice.

"Shit." Dean leans his head on Lisa's shoulder, squeezing his eyes closed. Castiel watches this little tableaux with mixed feelings of disgust and pity. They're talking about an illegal abortion, and yet they are so lost, so pitiably underequipped for this.

"If it's Lucifer's child there really isn't a problem...I know he has the money." Castiel says quietly. "I'm sure if you tell him..."

"He knows." Lisa says, turning world weary eyes on him. "Just...go back to your parents, okay?"

Castiel is frozen on the end of her stare, Dean's eyes, sad but somehow triumphant at his humiliation. Gabriel looks at the floor.

Castiel leaves, finding his way out into the darkness and running, running away from the pervasive murk of Lisa's cabin, and away from the heavenly illusion of the main house lights. He finds the canopy of trees and dashes himself on the carpet of leaves, sitting in the dark, panting.

But as his heart thuds it seems to say only one thing, and he knows that no matter how far he runs, Lisa and all the problems that make up the web he's blundered into, will not become unstuck from him. There is no solvent for human misery.

_Not over..._

Beats in his chest like a promise, like a threat. But it's Dean's voice there, scathing and strong and inflected with disdain and anger. It demands his attention, it demands recompense.

_Not over..._

_Not by a long shot..._


	3. Chapter 3

_It's all very strange - and after the finale I just want someone to hold me _

Castiel has no idea why he's here. He can't get that voice out of his head, the demanding tones that tell him that he isn't done. _Not over. _He has made himself a part of this, he is the one who strayed from the path into the woods, found Gabriel, the strange man, and did him a favour. He's been led like a fairytale infant, blind and stupid and fed to ignorance on milk and platitudes, led up to the den that is the staff cabin. He's seen a dance that his birth, his status and innocence determined he never should have seen. He's witness to Lisa's tears and the foulness of her indiscretion, realised as an embryo that even now is waiting to be torn out.

How can he leave? How can he forget the nightmare of it?

He is suitably distanced from it by day, and it is by day that he has come to the breakfast room, watching Lucifer's white jacketed form as he circles the tables, setting out rolls and water glasses. Castiel feels almost empty, like a china or spun sugar shell of a person in his navy pants and cricket white jumper.

The room itself is a bright place of faceted glass and white cloths, dark wood panelling and floor length windows. In the presence of such comfortable wealth, how can any of it be real? Has really only been days since he danced, since he _moved _against the body of a man, a stranger? And what has it done to him, but lance some fast working poison under his skin.

Lucifer barely looks up as Castiel approaches, but says, softly, so as to go unheard by the other waiters,

"Your sister's kind of a prude."

Castiel bridles. A speck he might be, empty he might feel – but anger is not beyond him, its base and it's hot and it bleeds through him like black coffee through a white sugar cube.

"I'm not here to speak to you about that..." he bites out, stomach soaring and souring with nausea. "If you mention her again, I'll make you regret it." No idea how he'll accomplish such a thing, Lucifer is slick and untouchable as oil, as naked sweat – raw and disquieting. Too sharp edged to ever be overpowered by Castiel, physically or mentally. He was not cultivated in the guarded, fantasy that Castiel grew up in – that all people are good and all dangers are far away.

He summons no small amount of courage and looks into Lucifer's eyes, sloe like and shrewd. Quite unbidden comes the thought of what Dean looked like, standing tall in front of this threat, brushing Lucifer away like a burr and sneering away his insults and probing words – seeking weakness with every syllable.

Castiel laments his dissimilarity to Dean, and realises that this is how he's felt since they met – wishing he could move and speak and behave just as Dean does. Exactly as he wants to, without fear or inhibition.

"I know you had...relations with Lisa Braeden." Castiel says, quiet, but sharp with pique.

"Oh really." Lucifer brushes this off.

"She's pregnant."

Lucifer laughs softly.

"I'd like two hundred and fifty dollars from you." Castiel proposes dryly.

"Like I need to guess what that's for." Lucifer sighs. "Look..." he turns to Castiel fully and looks him in the eye. "You're one of the better set around here...so, you'll understand me when I say that people like Lisa? People like that dancer asshole and his cousin, who hang around with her...they aren't worth the time." He smirks like they're joking about something as equals. "She probably screwed every guy in this place, from Dean right up to Sam Kellerman...so why should I bail her out of her own mess?" He leans a little closer. "And you'd do better having your fun with the entertainment, then leaving them to it – doesn't pay to get involved."

Castiel looks at him, a waiter with ambitions, med school waiting for him. Acid sweeps his veins. He is everything like this man...and he doesn't want to be, he wants to do something, help somehow, just to make the guilt, the worry, go away. More than anything else, he wants to show that he is better than a rich boy just passing the time.

"Stay away from my sister." He advises, and something must show in his eyes, because Lucifer backs away slightly. "Or I'll have you fired." He promises, disgust at his own privilege nearly choking him.

He leaves the breakfast room, he has one last route to take.

His father is a pleasant man. Not good, not overwhelmingly altruistic, but neither is he cruel or suspicious. So when Castiel asks him for two hundred and fifty dollars, no questions asked, his father only asks one thing of him.

"You're not in some kind of trouble, are you?"

Castiel is in every kind of trouble.

He knows that he's bargaining for blood money, for a woman he barely knows. All because there's a man's voice in his head, a man he can't seem to claw out from under his skin.

"No Dad." He smiles, his best honour roll, top graduate, choir boy smile – the one he used to mean, and which is now just a means to an end.

"Sorry for doubting you son." Michael smiles, and hands him the cheque. Castiel cashes it at the nearest place, a small bank about an hour's cycle from the camp. He rides there in blazing sun, feeling his back burn through his shirt and his thighs ache from the activity. He grimly exerts himself, trying to chase thoughts of 'why am I doing this?' from his mind.

That night he goes to the staff cabin, two hundred and fifty dollars cash in his pocket. He walks right up to Gabriel and Lisa, and Dean. He hands over the bundle of clean notes wordlessly and watches as Lisa takes it, mouth slightly open, eyes wide with relief and surprise.

"How did you get this...?" she looks up at him, "Did Luc..."

"No...you were correct in your assumption, on that point." Castiel admits with the customary difficulty has with words when so much is required of him.

"Then how..."

"You said you needed it." Castiel says, warning her slightly to just take the money, to let him off the hook. Because he still feels like a privileged child giving money to urchins – guilty and superior and inferior all at once.

"Jesus...are you for real?"

"Yeah...it takes a real saint to ask Daddy."

Of course it is Dean that drives the weight of his self disgust home, with a venomous look and a lazily aimed, but accurate insult that strikes Castiel to the hilt. He flinches internally, and catches Dean's glowering expression, half turned his way and shadowed between the hanging locks of his fringe and the beer bottle he's bringing to his lips. Dean glares at him a moment longer, searing the core of him.

_I don't need you. I don't want you. _

Castiel doesn't know why it should hurt so much, coming from him.

Lisa twists to Dean's side and whispers into his ear, tears already meandering down her face. Dean looks freshly devastated, Gabriel turns to inform Castiel that he can only get an appointment for Lisa on Thursday, the day Lisa and Dean are scheduled to perform at another resort close by. Pulling out would cost them their bonus, as well as putting their future at Kellerman's on the line – Dean has already stood on too many toes with the management, an oddly careless attitude for a dancer to have.

"Can't someone else fill in?" Castiel offers, almost painfully aware that he needs to make it up to Dean, his dreadful misstep of offering Lisa the money she needed, so easily, in a way that Dean never could.

"No, someone else can't 'fill in'" Dean sneers. "Pamela and Jo both have commitments, everyone works here, genius."

"Couldn't you find someone..."

"Give it up." Dean orders, "It's just not...it's not going to work." He swallows and looks at Lisa. "What do you want to do?"

Gabriel looks up from the floor, his eyes having fixedly been combing the boards for a number of minutes.

"Castiel could do it." He blurts.

Both Dean and Castiel look at him as though he's insane.

"He's willing to help...he knows the situation, and it's not like we can tell anyone else..." Gabriel says defensively. "Plus he's all kinds of scrawny and girly looking."

The insult passes him by in a wave of surreal miasma. This is not happening, it's absurd. He is here on vacation with his family, and yet within days this cast of...of grotesques, have transformed his nights into nightmares over which he has no control – in which his decisions are hard and he is always found wanting.

And yet when Dean sneers at Gabriel, and pronounces him 'a certifiable case' Castiel opens his mouth and feels a rush of nerves and panic as sharp and deep as intoxication.

"I can do it."

Dean sputters incoherently before lighting on, "Give me a fucking break – this is insane."

Whip-like intensity in him, Castiel turns and glares at him.

"You don't have a choice and you know it." His voice comes out deeper than he intended, the words harsher and yet somehow, the power in them makes Dean s_ee _him. Castiel doesn't think he's actually been seen until now, had someone look at him as if he's a life raft and a dangerous animal and something else, something...something wanted, in his whole life.

Like a poison, like a drug, it coils through him. And when Dean gives a nod of tacit accent, he feels a soaring, giddy sense of being without ballast and without lifelines – completely at the mercy of the updraft and the undercurrent.

Sick and free.


	4. Chapter 4

"And again..."

Dean rests the needle on the opening swatch of blank space that marks the beginning of the record. Rivulets of static come from the speakers as he stands in front of Castiel, holding his arms up in the opening stance of the routine they are trying to learn. Castiel attempts to remember all the various steps, but they're slipping from his mind too easily. He can't even do the merengue, let alone the mambo, and he is already tired from the lies he's woven to escape his family, and the three sleepless nights he's had to contemplate the foolishness of this idea.

The cabin they're in is Dean's. A wide space of wood floor, bordered on all sides by scruffy chairs, a wardrobe, the bed and a table with the record player on it. Clothes are strewn over the chairs, soft and worn, the bed is unmade, a tangle of white sheets and unaligned pillows that Castiel's eyes linger on, imagining Dean doing something as harmless as sleeping. The air smells like sweat, which is no surprise given their exertions, but also of unwashed clothing and the biscuity scent of a bed slept in and left unaired. It's musky and dark, only their area, under the dirty skylight, is lit by the sun.

The opening bars of De Todo Un Poco start to emerge from the record player, and Castiel is certain that this music will follow him into his sleep, setting the rhythm of his nightmares. He moves his foot, accidentally stamping his tennis shoe down on Dean's own toes, the other man glares up at him, then storms over to reset the record.

"For fuck...don't go on the one – you go on the two, ok?" He comes back into position. This time when the opening of the song sounds, he gives Castiel a warning look, sensing the rise of his foot.

"No."

Castiel drops his foot to the floor.

A beat passes.

"Now." Dean leads him off, Castiel obediently moves his clumsy feet after Dean's lead, stepping forwards to match Dean's step back, feeling Dean's hands tighten on his own palm and shoulder respectively. They come back to their set starting position and Castiel steps forward on the first beat again, Dean swears and stomps back over to the record player.

This is a terrible idea for many reasons, quite apart from Castiel's complete ineptitude for dancing, or indeed any physically deft activity – he is also male, and a male partner is not something that should be touted about on the dance floor in front of wealthy guests.

"You'll be wearing a ton of make-up anyway." Dean assures him gruffly, when he attempts to voice his concerns. "Anyway, you'll be moving and under all those lights, they'll see what they expect – that's all."

It does little to calm him.

The idea of dressing as a woman is one he relishes about as much as the idea of spending a week where his every available moment is spent in the company of Dean Winchester, his glower and his monosyllabic and increasingly derogatory teaching manner.

But he persists because...well, really there is no reason but his own galling sense of obligation and apology. He doesn't know why he owes these people so much of himself, and yet he has blundered into a bargain of sorts, though one in which there is no benefit for him.

"Are you concentrating?" Dean says, from alarming close by. Castiel jumps and blinks twitchily. "You're not are you...for the love of..." Dean takes his shoulders in his hands and shakes him slightly. "Five days to learn this routine, I could do with a little focus from you." Dean scolds, and Castiel, in another rush of that intoxicating, heavy anger lets out, in a voice that doesn't quite sound like his own –

"Maybe you're just a terrible teacher."

Dean blinks at him, a slow look that incorporates annoyance and a kind of sharp surprise, bordering on appreciation.

"And you've got a pair after all." He exclaims sarcastically. He pulls Castiel back into their starting position just as the music begins to play. "Now, step on my foot again and I'll cut them off."

They progress slowly.

Castiel learns how to count the beats and not harm Dean's feet with each misstep. He learns that he has to move on the balls of his feet, light and quick, that holding his arms stiff and straight is important.

The actual steps are harder.

Castiel wobbles through a twist, almost losing his balance, as he starts to fold sideways, Dean pulls him back by the arm and brings their faces so close that Castiel can feel the annoyed huff of breath on his cheek.

"Start with your head." Dean insists, low and grasping hard at his last shred of calm. "Whip your head round. Find my eyes, and turn as you go."

Castiel swallows nervously, he gets back into place and tries to twirl obediently and with a great deal more balance. Each time his head comes round, the room resolves from its blur into Dean's face, eyes sharp and hard as he spins Castiel around again, each time dragging his attention back to his eyes with a firm, square fingered hand at his jaw. Castiel allows himself to be pushed into place, and for Dean's had to guide his head back into place, raising his eye line.

"Better." Dean says, without smiling, intent on the movement they've managed to establish.

Castiel goes through the mambo so many times in those few days that he grows sore. The dance itself might look effortless, but being crushed into the mould of it is not something that agrees with his body. His legs and arms are strained, his feet blistered and his fingers aching from Dean's grip on them.

He goes through the steps in his room at night, working out how to move himself as Dean has told him he must – stiff armed, head up, on his toes. It's hard and punishing, but strangely...he's getting used to it, to the ways in which he can move now, strange and sinuous though they are. He never knew he could move like that.

This is not to say that the dance, or indeed that Dean, have become any more pleasant. In fact, the closer the night of the performance gets, the more demanding Dean becomes. He swears more, dripping sweat over his black vest and dress pants. He jerks Castiel back into place harder, each time he makes a mistake, he grits his jaw and glares with hateful green eyes.

Castiel has grown to hate Dean almost as fiercely as Dean hates him. The anger in him burns just as sharply, just as brightly, as the hate that burns in Dean's eyes.

And Castiel is pleased.

He's never felt this way before.

Concluding the dance for the hundredth, the thousandth time, as the rain lashes down on Dean's cabin and drips from the leaking asphalt tiles on the roof, Castiel tips to one side during the final bow, when he and Dean are both supposed to kneel on the floor and bend back elegantly.

Castiel is not elegant. His mistake wrenches Dean's back and the irate dancer, smarting and already on edge from the pressure, shoves Castiel to the floor and curses loudly.

"The fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill me?" he eases his back one handed, attempting to clamber from his knees to his feet. Castiel regains his footing first, twisting and pushing Dean to the floor without consciously deciding to.

"Push me again, and I'm out." He snarl, looking down at Dean as the furious man scrambles to his feet.

"You might as well, there's no goddamn chance that this is going to work, saves me putting up with you." Dean spits. "Is this a game to you? You think this is fun?"

Castiel, still trying to get his breath back, glowers at him.

"You, of course I do." He exclaims belligerently. "This is my idea of fun, coming out here to the middle of nowhere and taking 'instruction' from you." He swallows all the bile that threatens to overwhelm him, the urge to shove Dean to the ground again. "I'm doing this, all of this. To save your ass...what I really want to do, is drop you on it."

Dean glares at him for a minute, then he raises a hand, his expression evening out into benevolent indifference.

"Come with me." He says, and there's no retorting anger there. No fury to match his own. Castiel lets his pique die like a guttering match.

Dean bundles Castiel from the cabin and out towards his car, a sleek black contraption alive with shimmering rain and chrome. Dean jerks at the door handle while Castiel huddles under his trench coat.

"Damn it." Dean grunts. "I locked the keys in the car." He casts about for a second, then seems to light on a solution.

Castiel watches as Dean wrenches a small bollard from the verge behind them, using the mud caked end to smash the car's window.

"Sorry baby." He murmurs, opening the door from the inside. It takes Castiel a moment to work out that Dean is talking to the car. It's the first time he's seen Dean express any kind of personal emotion towards anything. To Lisa, to Gabriel, they're in the same boat, the same crooked family – but here, here he's chosen his car, worked for it probably, as it seems above his pay grade. It's shined and perfect and inside it's as clean as anything. Castiel settles into the passenger seat, this is Dean – not his cabin, not his job – this feels like him.

Dean glances at him once and seems to read this appreciation for his car, he flicks the radio on and music begins to play, thankfully not the De Todo Un Poco, but a new track 'What do I care'. It's the first music of its kind that Castiel has come across, having not maintained an interest in modern music for a good few years now. He doesn't recognise the fact that it's Johnny Cash, and Dean doesn't say anything to identify it. What he does say is,

"It's a Chevy V-8" he glances sideways at Castiel again. "You have any idea what that means?"

"That your car is eight years old?" Castiel meets his eyes. "I don't know much about cars but I remember this coming out, my uncle had one."

"Wise man." Dean fixes his eyes on the road again, apparently content to let the flaming mutiny of the last half hour dissolve into the realm of forgotten misdemeanours. "They're going to do good things with it, you'll see."

Castiel can't think of a response to that.

He doesn't know where they're going until they get there.

It's a field that Dean parks just outside of, leading him through the drizzle and towards a cluster of trees that are perched on the high bank of a river. One trunk has fallen, bridging the deep rift in the earth. Dean kicks off his shoes and walks out onto the slick wood, balancing perfectly despite his size and considerable muscle mass. He turns and gestures towards Castiel, who's peering from beneath his soaked hair, shirt sticking to his skin as he stands suspiciously in the rain.

"Come here." Dean calls impatiently, though pleasantly enough.

Castiel pauses like a startled rabbit.

"Your balance is shitty Cas – this'll be good practice."

Castiel toes off his tennis shoes and plants his alarmingly pale feet on the ground just in front of the log. He glances up at Dean.

"It's fine, see." Dean does a small leap and lands, wobbling only slightly before he finds his balance again.

Castiel inches out on to the makeshift balance beam.

Dean holds his hands out, waiting, and Castiel grabs them as soon as he's within reach. His heart leaping a little as he looks down and catches sight of the churning water of the river.

"Easy..." Dean holds his hands tightly. "Now move with me."

They go into the opening steps, forwards and back, forwards and back. Castiel is just starting to get into the rhythm when he tips ever so slightly and almost falls from his place on the log. Dean's hand moves to his elbow, hauling him up and close to him as he stabilises them both.

"It's ok." Castiel hears, realising that he's shut his eyes tightly in anticipation of the drop. "I've got you." He opens his eyes to see Dean looking at him, patiently waiting for him to calm down and get back to the business at hand.

They link fingers and begin again.


	5. Chapter 5

Somewhere in between the rain stopping and Dean suggesting that they use the open space of the field to practice a lift, Castiel begins to believe that Dean might be a somewhat decent human being.

Some of the time.

It's grudging and comes from a far corner of his brain, this notion that perhaps Dean isn't Satan, and that perhaps he just wants to keep his job and stop himself from worrying about his pregnant friend. Castiel tries his best and keeps his exasperation to himself. In any case, their balance improves on the log, and when Dean walks him back off of the fallen tree and towards the open space, Castiel is feeling cautiously optimistic.

"Ok, do this right, because if you do it wrong...you will hurt me." Dean says seriously, planting Castiel firmly in place before backing away a few paces.

Castiel instantly feels a mounting sense of panic. If he hurts Dean, really hurts him, he'll probably kill him.

And out here...well, who would find the body?

He measures the distance between them with his eyes. It's impossible. He's an earth-bound thing, there is no way Dean will be able to lift him, let alone do so gracefully and without injury.

Dean huffs impatiently.

"Let me worry about the lift, you just get over here and let me grab you without kicking me."

The idea of being grabbed is an unnerving one, but Castiel takes the space between them with the short fast steps he's learnt to do, coming up against Dean's chest and feeling his hands clamp around his waist. Dean makes a slight sound of effort, not quite a grunt, but a definite harshening of breath, and suddenly he's being touted upwards.

Dean cranes back his neck, hauls Castiel a little higher, then they lose their balance and Dean lets Castiel drop back to the ground. Castiel's legs feel unsteady, and Dean's breathing heavily from the effort of holding him up.

"Again." He pants, and Castiel gets back into position.

They fail three more times, and each time, Dean pants a little harder, and the bruised imprints of his hands on Castiel's hips grow deeper. The sensation of the ground falling away from his feet makes Castiel lightheaded and on the fifth attempt he raises a hand to beg for a respite. Surprisingly, Dean grants him one.

As Castiel collects himself Dean casts his eyes out towards the lake.

"You know...a better place to do this, would be out there." He points and Castiel follows the direction of his finger.

"Must I?" Castiel asks, only half serious.

"What? You afraid to get wet?" Dean's teasing him and he knows it, it's such a weird thing to happen, Dean who always seems so much older than he is, harder and stronger – is teasing him like a school boy. Dean seems to realise this, he lowers his tone a little, no longer making fun but...bordering on insinuating. "Come on Cas...surprise me."

It's a dare of some description, but the rules aren't clear, he isn't sure what he's meant to prove.

But the angry thing that has surfaced since he'd encountered Dean doesn't care what the terms are, it wants to win. It wants to flip the challenge back onto Dean and knock him onto the wrong foot.

He lifts his head up, smirking without conscious decision to, then bolts towards the water's edge, hearing Dean yell behind him,

"Dude, not fair!"

Castiel crashes into the water and his own whoop at the freezing temperature surprises him. Dean barrels in after him and tugs him out in an awkward front crawl towards the deeper water. At about chest height they stop and Dean turns to face him.

"Ok, now try again." He says spitting a mouthful of water back into the lake and pushing his wet hair out of his eyes.

Castiel bobs down in the water, feels the now familiar pressure of Dean's hands around his waist as he burst upwards, completing the lift for the first time.

"Great." Dean's voice is strained. "Now hold it...hold it..."

Castiel pitches forwards and barely has time to form his arms into the dive before he crashes into the water. They surface, sputtering and laughing insanely at their own failure.

Dean finds his footing and beckons him into a second try. It goes better, but by the time they've gone through it a few more times all they've achieved is a drenching and a couple of cramps from standing too long in the frigid water.

Scrambling up onto the bank, Dean claps Castiel on the back as they cross the field back towards the car.

"You're getting better." He admits gruffly. "Don't let it go to your head."

Castiel just smiles to himself, wrapping himself in his coat to avoid getting the seats of the car wet. He's exhausted and sleepy from the swimming, eyes drooping even as they begin to move. He doesn't know exactly when he falls asleep, forehead against the glass of the window, growing steamed up in a plume by his slightly open mouth, but suddenly Dean's tapping his shoulder and he opens his eyes to see Kellerman's outside the window and Dean's faintly amused face hovering near him.

"About time sleeping beauty, thought I was going to have to do something drastic." Dean's hesitant smile shrinks and dies within seconds and Castiel is left wondering if he imagined it. "You should get back to your parents." Deans says, and gets out of the car. Castiel fumbles with the door latch, realising as he does so they he's warmed up on the drive, as all the heater vents have been pointed towards him.

He climbs out of the car and stands awkwardly as Dean locks it up and pockets the keys.

"Last rehearsal tomorrow." Dean says. "Then the performance is in the evening." He looks at him with the same disinterest he always does, as if the last few hours had never happened. "You gonna be able to get away?"

"I've managed so far haven't I?" Castiel says, a little more harshly than he'd intended.

Dean just quirks his eyebrows and turns to stalk away, a brief, "See you then" tossed over his shoulder.

Castiel manages to get back to his room without his parents noticing that he's wet and vaguely lake scented. He strips off in his bedroom, tossing the damp clothes haphazardly across the floor. His room has morphed into a mess over the last week, mainly because he's been too tired to pick up after himself. He pads naked into the en suite, turns the shower on and lets it run until the room is thick with steam. Then he climbs into the tub and sits down on the spray, slowly unfolding his legs until he's sprawled under the deliciously hot water.

He eases the pulled muscles in his abdomen and touches the growing outline of finger shaped bruises. He lolls his head back against the rim of the tub.

"Fuck I'm tired." He says, the words rolling around his mind and then his mouth before he allows them into the air. He smiles guiltily, he's not the kind of person who curses. But here, well, there's no one around to hear. He toes the plug into the drain and lies still as the tub begins to fill.

He closes his eyes and drifts.

Dinner is not the nightly torment it has been. For one thing, freshly warmed and washed and tired out – he has acquired quite an appetite, and so he orders steak and sautéed potatoes for his main course, devouring it with such unholy speed that his Father raises his eyebrows.

"Manners Castiel." His mother chides, and he slows himself down and tries to adopt a more exacting routine of cutting, chewing and swallowing.

It really is delicious though.

He manages to avoid both Anna and Megan for the entire evening, though he sees Lucifer sniffing around her later on, and it's only Sam Kellerman's interruption that prevents him from telling the waiter to back off.

"Castiel!" A broad hand claps down on his shoulder. "How are you finding us?"

"Excellent." He says after a pause, and if he believes himself to be lying, it's his smile that betrays him – broad and wolfishly white. Sam grins back and, his social obligations taken care of, Castiel is allowed to retire early.

Tomorrow is the competition, and he's dubious of his abilities both on the dance floor and at subterfuge. Passing for a woman is a task to which he fears he is not equal...but his balance has improved, and together he and Dean may have almost conquered the lift.

With all the hours of practice under his belt...he's cautiously optimistic.


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel's fragile optimism runs out somewhere between their last rehearsal, and having to get ready for the actual performance.

There's something about being in a skirt that's deeply unnerving. The lack of regular underwear isn't helping with that sensation either. He's managed to wrap his waist and groin in such a way as to conceal the fact that he is in fact a man, with the careful employment of a silk scarf and some dubiously assembled knots. The whole endeavour makes him feel more than a little perverted and exceedingly uncomfortable.

Even with the dress over the top he still looks nothing like a woman – just a skinny, pale boy in a dress. He looks at himself in the mirror in Dean's cabin, trying to figure out how to attach the weave to the top of his head in such a way as to make it look like he has long hair in a chignon.

"No offense...but you kind of look like a whore." Dean says suddenly from his side of the room.

Castiel bristles and turns to glare at him, without a thought for how ridiculous such an expression would look over his current outfit.

"Just saying, red isn't your colour." Dean shrugs, straightening his tie and trying to tame his hair. He at least, gets to wear a suit and shirt, like any other normal man to take to the dance floor. Castiel turns back to the mirror, secures the long clump of black hair to the back of his head and begins to tackle his face. Lisa has left him with a tin of cosmetics, nubs of lipstick and clotted wands of black gel to make his eyelashes longer and darker.

He takes them out and looks at them. There's some kind of skin coloured stuff to even his complexion, blush for his cheeks, blue and green powders for his eyelids...He looks at his reflection dubiously, paler than ever and murky in the slightly fogged mirror. The cabin is a little steamy thanks to the iron that Dean had run over his suit, while Castiel changed behind the screen. It's warm and dust scented as always, though perhaps a little neater than it had been a few days ago.

Castiel uncaps the eyelash wand and attempts to line it up with the eye of his reflection.

Dean sits down heavily, straddling the bench he's on and jogging him slightly, so a small spider smear of black appears under his eye. Castiel frowns.

"You don't need that." Dean says exasperatedly, plucking the wand from between his fingers and dropping it back to the surface of the table. "Your eyelashes are girly enough as is." He frowns down at the assorted cosmetics. "Do the liner, some shadow and the lipstick – everything else is more trouble than it's worth."

Castiel picks up the lipstick and uncaps it, twisting to expose the sticky nub of crease worn down almost to the gold casing. He holds it awkwardly just shy of his mouth, trying to decide how the blunt tip will make the shape of his mouth without blurring over the lines.

"Oh for..." Dean takes the lipstick, his other hand twisting Castiel's face towards him. "We do not have time for this." He presses the greasy cosmetic against Castiel's lip, and he can feel the pressure of it as Dean sketches along the bowed shape and fills it in, leaving a tacky layer over his skin. Looking at Dean's face he sees his eyes narrowed in concentration, tongue pressing into the corner of his mouth. His hand loosens on Castiel's jaw as he goes over his lips again, before dropping the lipstick and picking up the tiny powder tiles and a brush to do Castiel's eyes.

"There." Dean says quietly, when satisfied that the job is done. His hand has remained against Castiel's jaw, and now it drops absently to the side of his throat, trailing hot fingers against his skin. "Now at least you're a painted whore."

Castiel swallows and tries to make sense of his reflection, in which his mouth is too dark and wet seeming, and his eyes are hugely shadowed, s_ultry _like those of the perpetually gasping woman on the covers of top shelf magazines.

"You don't like it?" Dean asks, and Castiel can't read his tone – neither mocking nor overly concerned, not teasing but...pressing.

His hand is still gently touching his neck.

"It's..." Castiel can feel how close Dean is, the warmth of him and the scent of shirt starch and skin and cigarettes. Dean's legs on either side of the bench seat are close to his own body, and in glancing down he sees the white of his shirt ill concealing the shape of him, the position of his body placing emphasis on the way his groin is angled.

Castiel attempts to breathe, but a warm buzzing of blood slides through him as he does, as if he's inhaled fumes of alcohol.

Dean's fingers touch the hair at the nape of his neck and Castiel feels his eyes hood themselves, his slicked and painted lips parting a little as his chest burns for need of air.

Dean's still looking at him, catching a whiff of something in the air. Though what that is Castiel is not certain. It's the feeling that Dean is close. But too close or not close enough is another thing entirely.

He thinks perhaps it's both.

But he has no idea why, why his breath is coming in fits and starts, or why his skin is hot under Dean's hand. Why his face is burning and his ears are hot and why he feels warm and heavy and immovably solid, but at the same time empty and alive and buzzing with electricity.

Or why Dean's fingers have slowly turned onto their sides, stroking down his neck towards his collar bone.

He has no idea why it makes him shiver.

Why it makes his body twitch with nervous energy, as if he's about to run or cry, or as if he's dreamt he's falling and woken suddenly.

Dean swallows, and it sounds so loud that it almost makes Castiel jump. Then, with a sudden jerk, the other man is just gone, and Castiel is left looking up at him, eyes wide and burning as if with unshed tears, though he feels further from crying than he ever has before.

Dean taps away in his laced up shoes and swings his arms into his suit jacket, all without turning round.

"I'll be in the car." He says, opening the door and disappearing into the night.

Castiel looks back at the mirror, struggling with his own sense of detachment. Castiel, the Castiel he has always been...is gone – superseded by this new face and body with its niggling concerns and attachments.

It's not him, and it is, at the same time.

He slides his feet, encased in a fine mesh of pantyhose, into the heeled slippers.

A long night. This is going to be...the longest night.

In the car Dean drives with his full attention, barely looking at him even though the journey takes half an hour. Castiel curls in on himself like a dead leaf, wrapping the trench coat around himself and trying to ignore the unsettlingly intimate, wrongness of all the silk and nylon against his skin, the soft material of the dress shifting and dragging over his torso, the sensitive points of his chest.

He shivers and Dean's frown deepens, focused on the dark road ahead. After a few seconds he reaches out to turn the heaters on, but he doesn't spare Castiel a glance, even then.

The Sheldrake is lit up from the inside like a pumpkin lantern, and Castiel approaches it slightly behind Dean, awkward on the gravel path in his heeled shoes. They enter the building and the odd, confusing time between arrival and performance is taken up in so much business that he finds himself waiting to go on stage in what seems the next moment.

His heart is beating so hard that it hurts, his stomach sick and his breath coming rough and harsh from the deep dark centre of him. Dean nudges him, leading him on wobbling legs out onto the dance floor.

From the centre of the stage the room is all darkness, table lanterns glowing like ailing stars, and the blinding beam coming down on the two of them eclipses the dinner guests. Castiel goes into first position, in front of Dean, waiting for the dancer's hand to run down his side and grasp his own palm, readying him for the first spin.

His heart beats. Dean's breath flows out against the nape of his neck.

De Todo Un Poco.

And it starts.


	7. Chapter 7

Throughout the first half of the dance Castiel doesn't look Dean in the eye.

He focuses instead on a point just to the side of his eyes, the hair at his temple and the lines of concentration in his brow. Castiel is primarily concerned with staying upright and in time with the music, all his effort is going to remembering the steps and trying to force his trembling body into replicating them correctly. Dean is steady and assured, he has done this a lot after all, and Castiel struggles to follow him precisely.

Then the spin comes, the rotation that demands excellent balance and eye contact to accomplish. Castiel glances up at Dean's eyes, focuses on them and performs the manoeuvre exactly as it should be done. A miniature triumph. But from that moment on he's stuck on Dean's eyes, and they're looking at each other as they move off, Castiel slipping into the routine without memory, without thought, until he's not looking at Dean, but has the vague and unsettling idea that he's looking into him.

The music trips and cascades onwards in a flurry of percussion, Castiel gets used to snapping his arms and feet into position, following Dean's lead and keeping his frame locked and his feet pointed.

Then the lift.

He backs off, finding the predefined distance of the run-up, set in his memory. He takes the short, swift steps across the stage and his heart thumps once, hard in his chest. Dean's hands grasp his midsection, but their eyes meet and something...flickers.

Dean's arms fail them, or perhaps it's Castiel's momentum that is insufficient, but, the lift fails and they are left, marooned in the circle of the spotlight, chest to chest and with Dean's hands pressing bruises into his skin.

Castiel has never felt at once such intimacy and such intrusion. There is an audience watching them, and yet, for a split second, Dean's eyes are on his, and his hands are on him, and a warm shudder passes through Castiel's heart as if it's waking up. Then Dean sweeps them off into the dance again, covering their mistake and delivering the final portion of the dance with polite detachment and an eye turned to the audience.

They finish to smatterings of applause.

The guests go back to their coffee and dessert.

Castiel feels sweat trickling underneath the dress, down his back.

Dean hurries them off of the stage and out through the back exit of the Sheldrake, avoiding the other members of staff and quickly secreting the both of them in the car. Once outside in the cold evening Castiel finds it hard to credit that he's just performed a dance, on stage, dressed as he is in a borrowed dress. It feels like a particularly obscure plot from a comedy of errors, and not like an event that would occur in his life.

Dean turns on the radio.

"Well, that's over." He says tiredly, and Castiel glances up from the back seat at him, struggling as he is to remove the dress and shimmy into his black slacks. He can't go home dressed like that, he thinks he'd rather drown himself, and it's already so late.

"You were good." Dean offers, stiltedly, eyes flickering between the road and the rear view mirror until Castiel feels a blush glowing in his face and flushing his chest at the attention. He shrugs out of the dress, pants down firmly buttoned, and searches for his shirt in the dark interior of the car. Dean taps his fingers on the steering wheel.

"I didn't do the lift." Castiel points out, sliding his arms into the shirt and buttoning it hastily.

"Will you just take the compliment?" Dean says roughly. "You were good, kept my ass employed for another year anyway."

"I'm glad."

Castiel climbs over the back of the bench seat and slithers into the front passenger position. His movements are awkward, and he's buttoned his shirt wrong, but he has other concerns. He takes out a tissue and wipes at the make-up on his face, though much of it is immovable.

He realises that his association with Dean, and also with Gabriel and Lisa, but primarily with Dean, is at an end. The thought makes him pause, just short of swiping at his lipstick smeared mouth. The radio plays on, and Castiel wonders if Dean will be struck by his absence in the coming weeks, or if he'll even notice.

"So...I guess you won't be hanging around anymore." Dean says, as if he's acquired the ability to part the murky waters of Castiel's mind and peer at the cold stone bed of it laid bare.

"You don't need me anymore." Castiel supplies the non-answer after a beat of silence.

Dean looks sideways at him, then back at the road with a slight huff of exasperated breath.

"You're a funny little guy, you know that?" he says conversationally.

Castiel can't think of a response, should he agree, or defend himself? "Is that so?" he settles on.

"You show up with Gabe of all people...never met any one of us before...and suddenly you're just there – with us, like we're your friends or your neighbours in the city." He drums his fingers nervously on the steering wheel, shifting in his seat. "Like we actually matter."

"I think you do." Castiel says, without a prompt from his inner mind. "Lisa needed help, it was nothing to give it."

Dean laughs, suddenly, and not entirely pleasantly.

"It's everything, Cas – you know that." He says amusedly, gripping the wheel to keep his hands steady. "You think just any guest here would do what you've done? I don't even know why you did it."

Castiel fingers the fraying cuff of his shirt. Such sloppiness is foreign to him, odd and exotically separate as the taste of alcohol or the scent of marijuana would be to most.

"Because... you made me think I should." He says quietly.

"I didn't say shit to you." Dean exclaims violently, as if taking umbrage at the suggestion of force.

"No, but you didn't think much of me." Castiel admits, remembering the torture of Dean's voice in his head, tell him he should do better. "I wanted you to think more of me, better of me." He picks at loose threads. "But it was nothing."

Dean's reaction is rather stronger than Castiel anticipated, he jerks the wheel over and pulls the car up onto the verge beside the road. Dean looks down at his hands, hanging limply from the lower crossbar of the wheel.

"Cas..." he says, and it's like the air's been punched out of him, like he's tired and wrung out and just...done.

Castiel knows that feeling. He has no idea why it's afflicting Dean, but the hour is progressing and he needs to get home before his parents see through Anna's deception and search out his empty bed.

But then Dean turns to regard him with a kind of intensity that makes Castiel deeply uncomfortable, and deeply unsure of himself.

"Cas...you don't...lie to your parents, for nothing." He says, slowly, looking pained by every word. "You don't do a week crash course in the mambo...for nothing." He looks up at Castiel, slowly raising his hand as he speaks. "Or agree to wear a dress, for nothing."

Castiel swallows as Dean's hand touches his neck, just as it did before, in his cabin. The heat flowers in him again, heavy and heady and strange.

Dean's voice drops to a rasping whisper, almost buried and drowned by the music on the radio, soft as it is. "You know, you shake every time I touch you."

Castiel shivers.

Dean looks caught between sense and sensation as he strokes the line of Castiel's jugular vein. Castiel looks into eyes drowned by pupil, Dean's lips slightly parted as he fights to keep his breath even.

Dean's thumb touches the corner of his mouth, and Castiel has a moment of perfect revelation, knowing exactly what is about to occur, before Dean's mouth touches his own.

No matter how cliché, how many books and movies and snatches of pop music that Castiel has experienced – it really is like electricity. His heart jumps, his body twitches, his skin crawls with voltage and his hands feel like they're burning. Dean's hold on his face is gentle but insistent, pressing him until he's at the right angle, until his mouth is open and Dean can draw on one of his lips, tongue slicking quickly, wetly between them.

Castiel's moan is startling to the both of them.

Dean's mouth is hot and wet, moving in a slow, sinuous way quite unlike talking or eating or whatever else one might do with a mouth. He makes a low noise of discontent in the back of his throat, and that is all the warning Castiel gets before he's pressed backwards and down, half into the seat and half against the door. Dean's mouth half devours and half caresses his own, his body pressing down in its sweat dampened and crumpled clothes, smelling of the Sheldrake and Dean's cabin. A solid thing pokes into Castiel's thigh and he recognises the shape and form instantly, he arches up, mouth open and gaping as if he's been underwater. It feels like he is underwater – warm, grasping water with boiling undercurrents and insinuating weeds. Churning and bubbling in salacious glee.

Dean pants his name next to his ear, a hand pushing up under his incorrectly buttoned shirt. The leather seats creak, the radio croons and Castiel parts his legs on instinct and lets Dean lie between them, pressing down on him until his pelvis protests, until his own penis hardens between them and heat, rewarding sparks of pleasure – heavy and dense as warm stones, fill his abdomen and groin. He lies back and sighs and groans along with Dean, one hand buried in the dancer's hair, the other gripping his hip like a lifeline, the bare flesh burning his palm.

Someone raps on the window.

Dean jerks upwards and off of him in the next second, and Castiel pulls away, back towards his own seat, a shuddery, warm body covered in burning hand prints and alight with friction from Dean's rough rubbing against him.

Gabriel peers into the car through Dean's side window, face a pale blur of disquieted concern. Dean shoves open the door and glares at him, half brazen and half shamed.

"What?" he rasps, mouth already growing plump and sore from Castiel's attention, red lipstick smudged over it.

"It's..." Gabriel glances into the car at Castiel, an arc of red lipstick across his cheek and the gleaming, dark eyes of someone in the midst of debauchery. Castiel shifts and feels the throbbing evidence of their act pressed against his thigh, aching more than it ever has before and straining for attention.

"It's Lisa..." Gabriel confesses, worriedly. "The guy we went to see...he hurt her, and...she's not doing so well."

Dean looks at him with shock widened eyes, then slams the door shut and barely waits for Gabriel to climb into the back, on top of Castiel's crumpled costume, before he roars up the road to Kellerman's.

Castiel rests against the door, arousal draining and leaving him cold and unsure and hopeless. At the back of his mind, a light of worry burns for Lisa, but at the forefront blazes his own fear.


	8. Chapter 8

The car rumbles across the matted grass and open, bared earth as Dean pulls unevenly over a verge and into the parking lot behind the staff cabins. The only cabin with lights on in presumably Lisa's, and two worried waitresses are standing on the porch, one with a cigarette in her hand. Dean barrels out of the car and almost sprints to the cabin and up he steps to the porch. Gabriel struggles out of the back of the car, and he waits for Castiel before they hurry into the building.

Castiel would otherwise have assumed his presence would be inappropriate.

This was after all, his fault.

But Gabriel stood by his side as they entered the tiny room, draped claustrophobically with glittering costumes and bright scraps of cloth, the serviceable furnishings lost under discarded hose and garters, make-up, scarves and magazines left open and ringed with coffee cup marks. It smelt of tobacco and perfume and the powdery scent of the costumes, there was also a sour scent, the sloppy, butcherish scent of blood.

Lisa was not alone on the bed, she was lying between two other seated dancers and under a counterpane with tufted edges. Castiel felt a lurch as the heightened hormones of lust in him combines with the horror of this scene – Lisa, waxen and pale, a bulge under the coverings making evident that some effort had been made to pad out the bleeding from below.

A bilious, salt taste filled his mouth and he thought for a dizzying second that he was going to be sick.

Dean was already crouching beside his partner, one hand touching her pale, corpselike face as she shuddered pitifully. Gabriel spoke beside him, but Castiel realised his words were meant for Dean and not for him.

"He wasn't a doctor." Gabriel's voice was strained, his eyes jerking between Lisa and Dean's face. "He wasn't...shit, he had a fucking knife and a folding table...after she started screaming I tried to get in – I goddamn tried, but..." he trailed off with a tortured expression. Castiel touched his hand gently, trying to press comfort on the tormented man. To his surprise, Gabriel didn't jerk away, but gripped his fingers gratefully. "She said a hospital would call the police." He continued in a steadier voice. "I don't know what to do."

Dean looked up at them from his place, kneeling on the floor.

And Castiel knew what he had to do.

"Stay here." He said numbly, then squeezed Gabriel's hand and bolted from the cabin, trying to force his shaking legs to stay under him and not stumble on the gravel lot. He ran faster than he'd ever had cause to run before, tearing through the rough brush between the staff area and the main part of the resort. Gravel paths and wood chip track slithered under his running shoes, and sweat painted his face as he swiped his hand urgently across his mouth, trying to remove the worst of the lipstick.

He pounded up the steps to his parent's cabin, realising from the darkness of the windows that it must truly be very late. Castiel opened the screen door and went inside, finding his father and mother asleep and waking his father with a rough shake, as he had never dared do before.

"Castiel?" Michael woke blearily and clutching at the sheets in surprise. "What..."

Castiel pulled at him, motioned for silence and then seized the doctoring bag that was never far from his father's hand, even on vacation.

His father understood that at least.

The age and relative unfitness of his father made the return journey longer and unpleasantly frustrating as Castiel began to wonder whether Lisa would still be alive when they reached her. His father had noted the lipstick stain on his mouth and the rumpled state of his clothes, the missed button on his shirt. He was cold beneath the air of urgency, and Castiel knew his father suspected him of being with a woman from the staff – perhaps even put this whole mess down to his own lax behaviour.

He was almost right. This did nothing to soothe the sharp, guilty corners of Castiel's mind.

When they at last reached the cabin that housed Lisa and her concerned entourage, Castiel barely had time to get inside before Dean was an inch from him and taking a possessive hold of his shoulder.

"Where did you go?" he hisses, eyes panicky and, if Castiel is reading them correctly, just slightly betrayed.

Castiel clasps his arm reciprocally and feels the warm resilience of Dean's flesh under his hand, he looks Dean in the eye just as Michael emerges from the darkness outside, already unsnapping his bag and going to tend to Lisa. Dean's eyes follow his movements and he seems to sag with relief and bristle with uncertainty at the same time.

"I got help." Castiel says simply, and Dean's warm fingers find his own as they stand, just out of the circle of shawl dampened light around the bed. Michael quickly assesses Lisa, prodding and rubbing at her stomach before shooing the performers from the cabin, Castiel and Dean included, so that he can take a look under the primitive wrappings.

Outside of the cabin, most people decide that the emergency is over, and since the fast approaching tomorrow is a working day, they hurry off to bed. Only Gabriel stays with them, and he wisely makes no attempt to bring up what he saw of them in the car, for which Castiel is profoundly grateful. He feels anyway a kind of shame which has a lot to do with the situation he had enabled Lisa to be placed in. It was he who borrowed the money, who had lied to his father to do so, and then covered for her so that she could have the procedure done.

He'd been enraptured beneath her friend and only source of safety as she lay suffering.

They talk little and fidget much as they wait. Dean smokes a cigarette and Gabriel scratches a sharp stone against the wooden boards of the porch steps. Castiel sits apart from them, cold and locked within his own thoughts.

Eventually his father emerges from the cabin, carrying his bag. He barely glances at Gabriel, but when Dean scrambles to his feet he glares at him.

"Sir, I'm so grateful you..."Michael brushes off Dean's brusque thanks with no acknowledgement, taking Castiel by the arm instead.

"Castiel, we're leaving." He grates out, and Castiel goes with him like a limp ragdoll, cowed by his father's cold anger.

He can't even look at Dean as he leaves.

Halfway back across the darkened resort his father begins to speak, not looking at him but striding furiously instead.

"Was that what my money paid for?" he demands. "You paid for that girl to be...butchered like that?"

"Yes...I..."

"No." His father cuts his off. "You're not the person I thought you were Castiel." He says sadly, coldly. "My son wouldn't lie for the money to do something like this...he wouldn't befriend the kind of man, who would get a girl in that situation and then get someone else to buy her out of it." As they reach their cabin Michael turns to glare at him. "I'm going to bed, and we'll be leaving in the morning." He wheels around to go back to his own room. "Wash that make-up off of you before your mother sees you." He growls over his shoulder. "she doesn't need to know the kinds of things you've been doing."

Castiel goes to his own bathroom, feeling like a kicked curr of a dog. In the mirror his reflection stares balefully, bruised lipped, streaked with sweat run make-up and smudged with lipstick. He looks like he's been debauching himself with a whore all night – which is exactly what his father believes he has been doing.

He takes a wet cloth a starts to clean his face, touching his fingers once to the edge of his swollen, reddened lips, a shamed shiver of desire goes through him, and he hastily wipes his mouth with the cloth.

There's been too much sex in the air tonight, between Dean and himself, that amorphous, undreamt of desire that had never entered his mind before. He can't block it out now. But then there was also Lisa, Lisa and her boudoir like cabin, her liaisons and her pregnancy forever tied up with his own lusts. The scent of blood. Tear tracks. Hushed and gathered spectators.

The nightmarish combinations won't separate.

He can still taste Dean in his mouth.

Castiel sets the cloth down and grips the side of the sink with both hands. He forces himself to think of nothing, of the white enamel under his hands, of the blank eye of the mirror over his bent head. He's a speck of no consequence, he's tiny, everything he's feeling is going on in his head, in his body – and both are tiny, are minute, beneath the overarching nature of the rest of the universe.

But his usual litany of small time nihilism cannot touch the raging thing at the centre of him, the thing in his chest that lashes out with anger and jibes...

The thing that Dean had noticed, the thing that responded to him.

And Castiel aches, not as a speck of no importance, but as a great cavern of rumbling need, the hungry groaning of which drowns out his most self preserving of thoughts.

Blood throbs around his body, his mouth is soft and bruised, his spine a line of tension and his skin alive and bristling with the want to be touched, so that even when he moves his own hands to rest on his shirt covered chest, it feels like the barest kind of relief.

It's like a storm or fire, some cataclysm is gathering in him, raging in him.

And it is all raging for Dean.

He sucks in a breath as he looks up to stare at his reflection.

"_You're not the person I thought you were Castiel."_

"_You know, you shake every time I touch you."_

Who is he, really? Under everything that's expected of him?

What does he want?


	9. Chapter 9

_I know this bit of the film has the whole speech between Baby and Johnny, and the 'dance with me' bit...and I tried I really did – but they just wanted to go for it, and god help any writer who stood in their way grumbling about plot._

There's dew on the grass already, dawn still a little way off when he knocks on Dean's door.

Castiel can feel road dirt and damp from the grass mingling seeping in grittily around his toes. His legs ache from the run over to his parent's cabin earlier, and from the half wild dash, half reticent stumble he's just performed to get to Dean's cabin.

There are still lights at the window, Dean must not yet be asleep. Castiel himself feels as if he'll never sleep again, the combination of want and fear is too potent.

His palms itch as he raps on the wooden door, his heart is gripped with nerves, with painful urgency, need and uncertainty. What if Dean turns him away? What if his mind is too struck by the horror of that evening?

What if he doesn't want him?

This last hurts him more than the rest, and the backlash of his own shame is almost enough to send him fleeing home to the safety and cold comfort of his single bed down the hall from his parent's room.

But then Dean opens the door, his shirt untucked and open in the heat of his room, he looks surprised, but not displeased.

Castiel stands stock still in the dark, buffeted by moths that want to enter the warm, bright room beyond Dean's shadow.

Dean takes his hand and pulls him in.

The door closes behind him and Castiel closes his eyes as he's pressed back against it, his entire space full of Dean, his body, breath and scent closing in on him fast. Dean's forehead presses against his own, their mouths only a millimetre apart.

"I didn't think you'd come." Dean mutters, hands already touching Castiel's hips, tugging his shirt up and sliding just slightly under the waistband of his pants. Castiel swallows.

"I did." He says redundantly, but his brain isn't working, not with one of Dean's hands snaking up to stroke through the hair at the back of his head, caressing the back of his neck just a shade too roughly to be affectionate. Castiel's tilts his head back and just tries to breathe as his own hands clutch Dean's shirt, rubbing at the hot skin underneath.

Dean makes a short, gruff sound of discontent, pressing their lower halves together. A jolt passes down his spine and Castiel can't help the shameful sound that leaves his mouth, or the wanton way he responds when Dean increases the pressure against him.

Their mouths meet and it's like drowning. Castiel's chest is alight with heat, like boiling water has been poured into him, his hands aren't in his control anymore, they're just pulling at Dean, bringing him closer and touching his skin. The only sounds they make are the wet parting of lips and tongues, the rough moans of approval as they change angle and push deeper into the kiss.

Dean drags his lips away, tilting his head up towards the ceiling, throat working furiously as he swallows, colour high and hair damp with sweat.

"Oh...shit..." he pants and his hands, one half up Castiel's back and under his shirt, the other rubbing the top of his thigh, shake with the effort of staying still. Castiel for his part is lost, warm and throbbing vaguely with the promise of release, body on fire and heart racing. Dean groans when Castiel lowers his mouth to the space between his collar bones, nuzzling and scraping his teeth over it with no real intention other than to taste the skin.

"Cas..." Dean's breath comes sharply as Castiel's hand presses square into his chest, thumbnail dragging over his nipple and sending a hot bolt through him. "Cas...stop..." Dean's hand extricates itself from Castiel's shirt, cupping his face and dragging it up urgently, Castiel has trouble focusing and the sight of Dean's blown pupils, his stubble scraped lips, adds new ferocity to the raging need in him.

"Do you even..." Dean rubs a thumb roughly across Castiel's swollen lower lip. "Do you know what this is...What I want you to do...?"

A furrow of uncertainty wrinkles Castiel's brow, Dean groans and kisses him again, tongue pressing inside and tracing the wet contours of Castiel's mouth. When he pulls away again they're both gasping.

"If you don't know...how are you sure you want..."

Castiel presses against him and both of them lose their minds in the feeling of their lengths meeting though the thin layers of their dress pants, hard and insistent, aching at the delay.

"I don't care." Castiel turns his face to Dean's throat, sucking at the sensitive skin over the vein in an imitation of Dean's own work on his neck. The taller man's knees almost buckle at it, and his already shaky resolve turns to splinters.

He turns them and shunts Castiel towards his mussed bed, pushing him down and sliding on top of him with minimal effort. They kiss fiercely, as if trying to suffocate or consume the other, Dean's hands creep to previously untouched portions of Castiel's body, below his belt, where he rubs the warm weighted bulge and makes Castiel groan deep in his throat. Dean coaxes him into returning the favour, with shaking but determined hands.

By this time they're both drenched in sweat, harder than they can afford to ignore and both gasping for more skin to touch and feel. Dean tugs Castiel's shirt up and pushes it back off of his shoulders, Castiel does the same to him, but by the time they come to unfastening their pants, Castiel is trembling and unsure.

Dean hooks his fingers into the waistband of Castiel's pants, slowly easing them down over his hips and revealing the pale skin of his thighs , the delicate structure of his knees and calves as he pulls from off. Castiel's underwear is dark green and looks almost black in the shadow of their corner of the room. Dean presses cautious, purposeful kisses to the side of Castiel's throat, to his collar bone and down his chest, pausing to press the tip of his tongue to the flat bead of a nipple. Castiel sucks in a frantic sip of air as Dean presses his teeth above the sensitive peak, treating it to a rough scrape of enamel points and the soothing, hot swipe of tongue that follows after. Castiel's breath hitches as he sighs and wriggles under the attention, Dean laves the points of his chest wet and sensitive, the buds of his nipples reddened and rising with the treatment.

By the time he moves his attention southwards, Castiel is panting, shifting on the bed, and barely reacts as Dean pulls his underwear down his legs, before removing his own pants and undershorts.

Fully unclothed, Castiel feels the weight of Dean's body settle over his own, he blinks open his eyes to look up at the dancer, and can barely quell and surge of excitement at all the tanned and toned skin on show. The feeling of it as it touches his own bared skin is shamefully good, the smoothness of the skin, roughened only slightly in places by a lack of attention paid to its care, it's innocence and decadence in one. Dean is broader than him, fitter and stronger – but the dance practice and an already fairly austere life have left Castiel without much in the way of spare flesh.

When Dean lowers himself fully onto him, so that their uncovered groins meet in a prickling press of hair, velvety muscle and surprising dampness, Castiel presses his head back into the mangled covers of the bed and moans.

Their movements are uncoordinated, a combination of ignorance on Castiel's part and the impatience of them both making any kind of thought or plan almost impossible. Dean finds a place between Castiel's legs, rubbing and rutting there as they both fight the need to breath, mouths sealed in quick, wet movements. Between the complex, dirty configuration of kisses their breathing is plagued with pleading sounds, grunts and sighs, until Dean pushes Castiel firmly down onto the mattress and sits up over him. The younger man blinks up at him, struggling to even his breathing as he watches Dean with curiosity.

Dean looks down at him for a moment, then brings his hands down and Castiel feels them close on his thighs, shifting them further apart and up, spreading him wide. His heart thumps in his throat and Castiel begins to understand what Dean meant when he asked him if he was sure – if he knew what he was letting himself in for.

"You get it now?" Dean's voice is scratchy, most of his saliva is currently dried on Castiel's skin, and right then Castiel resolves to put his fears to bed. He's too far gone for this.

So when Dean places questing, questioning fingers to the hot skin between his legs, he bites down on his minds whispered protest, and keeps his legs parted. He lets Dean circle the hidden opening and finally coax a finger into it.

It hurts. Like nothing else it hurts, more so as Dean adds another finger and moves them apart to stretch him. Castiel enters the blurred, mindless state of pain, until he's aware only of the uncomfortable intrusion on his body, and the sweat soaked sheet clenched in his left hand. From somewhere far away Dean asks him if he's ok, and, not trusting himself to speak, Castiel nods, keeping his eyes and jaw clenched shut. There's something slippery on Dean's fingers, something that feels cold initially but grows warm and more fluid, so it seeps messily along the line of his parted flesh and makes the sheet damp under him. Dimly, Castiel remembers the muscle soothing concoction that Dean uses on his sprains, he's used it himself, and here it is, being used to prepare the way for this.

When the pressure returns, Castiel hisses and curls his toes into the bed sheet. Dean strokes the inside of his thigh and favours his erection with a few slow strokes, made sticky smooth with the same fluid. After that the burning recedes a little and Castiel feels his body adjust to the occasional throb of pain.

When Dean settles between his legs though, a new kind of pain appears imminent. Castiel is certain that whatever he's about to experience will be a great deal more painful than a few fingers. With the soft advice of, "Stay relaxed – it'll hurt less" from Dean, Castiel braces himself for the beginning of the end.

It hurts a whole lot more than before, and his brain catches the idea that it is Dean's penis slowly pressing into him, and he isn't sure if that makes him feel better or worse. The broadness of the stretch is increased, the pressure too, as Dean is clearly not in the position to hold himself back. It burns and Castiel arches, face pressing sideways into the bedding as the pain makes his body hum and seize up.

Eventually it stops, Castiel feels as full as he possibly could be, and illogically wonders if he's even deep enough, because the intrusion feels monstrous. But Dean is still, and after a few minutes Castiel opens his eyes and takes a shuddering breath.

"You ok?" Dean's whisper cracks in the middle.

"Yeah." Castiel winces as he tries to move his leg into a more comfortable position. "Almost."

Dean pulls out a little, experimentally, and Castiel hisses as the backwards drag of skin on skin makes cramping heat flood through him again - though this time perhaps just slightly less unpleasant. Dean's mouth touches his on the down stroke, and Castiel opens to his tongue placidly, feeling renewing arousal curl in his stomach. Dean pulls back and thrusts into him again, mouth finding the curve of Castiel's neck. By the third thrust the pain is almost entirely gone. By the tenth, Dean has started to bump and rub over something inside of him that feels _good. _So Castiel languishes in this new pleasure,like there's a direct link between it and the rest of his body, which sends him uncoiling and writhing expectantly as the pressure builds.

Dean is thrusting with his eyes closed, moaning whenever Castiel's body clenches on him involuntarily, his stomach robs against Castiel's erection, unreached by either of them. Castiel lets his legs fall wider, pushing up into the force of Dean's downward push. The effect is electric and within a few more quick, brutal pushes into his willing body, Castiel feels himself begin to heat up and tense with pleasure. He comes with his erection pinned against Dean's stomach, his hands clutching at the thick muscle of Dean's lower back.

Blissfully punch drunk after his orgasm, Castiel lies under Dean and folds his arms over the dancers back, holding him closer, warm and relaxed as Dean stutters closer to his climax. One of Castiel's hands cups the side of his face, his thumb errantly sliding between Dean's lips, pressing into the point of his incisor as Dean's eyes squeeze shut and he moans in the grip of his final shudder of pleasure.

Knocked out by his orgasm and from the string of tense, new experiences of the night, Castiel falls asleep embarrassingly quickly after completion, lulled to it by the weight and warmth of the body still lying half on top of him, even as Dean strokes his side.


	10. Chapter 10

Castiel wakes, dry eyed and cotton mouthed, on his side. The sheet over him, he can tell by the feel, is trailing just below his hips, an awkward angle that makes the fabric lax and tickly over the naked skin of his thighs and groin. It's an almost innocently pleasant sensation, and it's only when Castiel realises that his bared back is attached to those bare thighs, and that his shins and arms are seamlessly uncovered also – that he is in short, naked – that he begins to crease his brow in growing distress. Struggling towards wakefulness with sated limbs, Castiel cracks an eye and recognises the warm bulk on the bed next to him as Dean. Castiel is facing him, curled in on himself and into Dean's chest and abdomen, with his legs tangled with Dean's own under the scanty sheet.

Castiel closes his eyes to quell the wave of unpleasant revelation.

But unfortunately, his body keeps mopping up sensory data. Dean's skin is warm against his own. There's something clotted in the hair that peppers the space between his legs, that pinches a little as he moves, snagging the hairs and pulling them. Dean's groin is resting lightly against the space between Castiel's stomach and the top of his left thigh. Rough, scratchy hair, and the burning hot length of Dean's almost hardened penis, rest alarmingly on Castiel's skin. He flinches despite himself, at that.

Dean makes a disgruntled sound as Castiel draws away from him, flinching back from Dean's heat and touch. Castiel looks at Dean's face, relaxed in sleep. He's staring into the features of a man who's kissed him, who's touched him and had him...and he's unnerved by it. As he moves he discoverers new aches that tell the story of the previous night, that remind him of what he allowed Dean to do, what he relished as it was done.

Dean's arm moves to rest over his waist and Castiel's attempts to dislodge it gently prove pointless.

Castiel closes his eyes and goes still on the bed, allowing the arm to stay where it is.

Hopeless. In a word, is a how he feels. This is the greatest of his mistakes by far, and it is the one he cannot return from. Sooner or later it had to happen, and he is without a doubt in too deep.

_You wanted him. You sought this out. You let him._

His mind forces him to accept these things as true. He did want Dean, and, beyond the shock of lying next to him naked when he'd slept and forgotten his own desire... he is quite content where he is, the warmth is no longer quite so disquieting, the aches in him are more pleasant than he had at first decided.

His legs and arms feel new, as if he's just become aware of all the tendons and muscles there. His spine bends and moves with him as he shifts on the bed and when he swallows he feels for the first time the shape of his mouth, the line of his teeth and the workings of his throat.

Dean turns over and lies against his side, arm cinching closer and the hand at the end of it rubbing flat and warm into his hip. Dean's face buries itself in Castiel's neck, and he twitches a little as Dean exhales there, a low groan attached to the end of the sigh as Dean's hips slowly grind against his thigh. Castiel hisses as a warm trail of sticky fluid is marked on his skin, the full hardness of Dean shifting impatiently against his skin. He can feel his own length hardening rapidly as Dean alternately squeezes his hip, grinds into his thigh and huffs against his throat.

He turns to face Dean, watching his face change, shifting between pleasure and discontent. Reaching up a hand, Castiel traces the side of it.

How does he feel, about this man?

Dean has been, by turns, indifferent, derisive, downright unpleasant, pleased, affectionate, desirous and...

What was last night? A hand on his pulling him into the shadowy cabin, a gentle warning against the pain that Dean'd reluctantly cause him, an hour or so of bodily pleasure that surpassed anything he'd heretofore experienced...and now this morning, a mostly still asleep and highly aroused man at his side. A warm bed and rain still falling outside.

He kisses Dean hesitantly, tasting salt on the dry skin of his mouth and feeling the softness of his lip underneath.

Dean grumbles in his sleep.

He's known Dean for little more than a week, and since Castiel met him he's only wanted to live up to his own high expectations – to surprise Dean and make him think of him as a decent man, a good man.

He presses closer, breathless, until their foreheads meet, then he kisses Dean again, waking him in the process and turning the touch of lips into something deeper, wetter and infinitely more satisfying. Dean moans against his mouth, hand on Castiel's hip pulling him closer, rubbing them together. Castiel doesn't protest when he's rolled onto his back, Dean eagerly nudging on top of him.

"You're still here." Dean murmurs happily, sounding surprised.

A slight, cold doubt forms in Castiel's stomach.

"If you want me to go..."

"No." Dean presses down on him, eliciting a sigh and a small whine. "God no, I just thought...maybe you'd get scared...run away."

"You're not so frightening." Castiel wriggles underneath him, offering his hips up at the right angle to rub Dean's hardness over the still wet cleft of himself. His own breath stutters and Dean outright groans as he presses just a little way into him. There's a little pain, but not enough for him to balk at.

"You're not so innocent." Dean says, once he's acquired the breath to form words, he moves closer and kisses Castiel's panting mouth.

Castiel just shakes his head, moaning agreement. He is not innocent. He's in love. Possibly the quickest way to lose anything milk fed and ignorant about himself.

This time, when Dean finishes with a quiet groan, face buried in the pillow beside Castiel's head, Castiel wraps his arms of the other man's trembling back. Dean goes still for a second, then submits to the hug, rubbing his morning scruff into the smooth skin of Castiel's shoulder.

"Mmmm...we should clean up." Dean says after a long, lazy while, getting to his elbows over Castiel's prone body. "You're a mess." He says, with half affectionate bluntness.

When Castiel slings his legs over the side of the bed and sits up he outright winces at the pain. Dean frowns sympathetically, a slight smirk still finding its way to his face.

"Probably should have warned you about that." He says sheepishly, as Castiel stands and winces again, sucking in a breath at the pain as his body attempts to adjust itself back to virgin tightness against the soreness of his complaining insides. Dean leads him patently into the small bathroom, just a tub with a toilet opposite. He turns the hot and cold water on full blast and checks the temperature in a vague way before settling Castiel at the smooth end of the tub. Dean himself presses his back to the facets awkwardly, their legs a tangle in the middle of the narrow space.

Dean has a bar of white soap, the logo stamped on it blurred by prior use, and a wash cloth, shaving brush and safety razor in a bowl on the side of the tub. They take turns with the scant equipment, Castiel washing his face and chest clean of dried sweat, cataloguing the marks there as the water sluices dried and drying fluids from his lower body. He's never bathed with anybody before, and as ridiculous at it seems even to himself, it is as startlingly intimate as sleeping beside Dean, as having him inside of him.

"You thinking deep thoughts over there?" Dean interrupts, gently nudging his foot against Castiel's thigh.

Castiel blinks at him owlishly, not really knowing what to say. It seems an inappropriate moment to be struck by shyness. Dean rolls his eyes.

"Come here."

He manoeuvres them until Castiel is sitting with his knees bent and Dean kneeling between them, soap and shaving brush in hand. Castiel sits placidly as Dean soaps the fine bristles on his face and gently sweeps them away with the razor. When he's done, Dean wipes the remnants of soap away with a wet hand and pauses before kissing Castiel neatly on the mouth, hand still touching the smooth line of his jaw. Dean breaks away and sits back a little.

"You feeling better now?" He asks, brow wrinkling in concern. "Less sore I mean."

Castiel wriggles experimentally.

"I'll live." He says quietly. Dean kisses him again, smelling of plain soap and wet skin.

The other man pulls back and looks at him for a long moment, leaving Castiel feeling a little odd at the appraisal.

"So...uh..." Dean rinsed the shaving brush in the bath water. "Do you think you'll...are you gonna want to do this again?" he asks, awkwardly.

"Yes." Castiel says, quietly. "But...my father said he's cutting our trip short."

Dean actually looks disheartened at that.

"But." Castiel says, the look on Dean's face prompting him to try and make this better somehow. "John Kellerman loves my Father, he's his doctor and his best friend...and he's not going to hear of him leaving early." As he says it he realises that it's probably true. "And my sister, Anna? She's really excited about the end of season show."

Dean's hopeful eyes on his warm him more thoroughly than the bath water.

"So...I'd like to come back." Castiel says steadily, holding the other man's gaze. "If you'd like me to come back."

"Of course I want to see you again." Dean looks at him thoughtfully.

"You know...when we met I really didn't like you." He touches Castiel's hand gently. "Honest to God you seemed like...like one of the guests you know? All...dull and looking down on us for having fun, for being what we are..." He bites his lip. "But then, I danced with you..." he looks Castiel in the eye. "Even though I'm really good at...well, finding men like me, knowing them from the regular kind...you were confusing as hell – like you had no idea what you wanted."

Castiel feels the heaviness of Dean's inner workings settle over him, this is what he's been thinking, this non-demonstrative man who's driven his actions since he came here. These are his thoughts and opinions, the way he felt. Castiel knows that this must be a rare thing - he treasures it as he would a declaration of his own prowess.

"And...you just kept surprising me." Dean half laughs to himself. "You're...really goddamn hard to read, you know that? All this time I've been watching you and trying to work out if you were interested in me...if you'd just run for the hills if I touched you wrong...and, when I did..." a contemplative, wanting look crosses the other man's face. "It felt like you'd been waiting for me to make a move."

"I didn't know I was." Castiel says shakily, after a pause.

Dean looks at him strangely, as if this confirms something in his mind, then he sighs and stands up, water running off him, seemingly unabashed by his own forthright nakedness.

"I guess that makes you something new then." He says quietly, picking up a towel for himself and offering one to Castiel.

Castiel doesn't know what to make of that.


	11. Chapter 11

That first morning – for it is _the first _– he sneaks back into the cabin smelling of Dean's soap and Dean's bed. He feels fully in his own skin and aching from running and dancing and the effort of trying to get Dean closer to him than skin to skin, flesh parting flesh. Castiel barely has time to change his clothes before his parents are awake and stirring, getting up to put on their shoes and shirts, cufflinks and pearls – gathering themselves for another day of prescribed fun and another grapefruit breakfast at the lodge.

Michael glowers over his fruit, fixing Castiel alternately with a disapproving stare and a glare of utmost anger. Behind it all is a kind of vague, elder confusion and a reassuring glint of affection for him that heartens Castiel considerably. As does the presence of bacon and eggs, he's starving.

"I was thinking...we should probably get back soon." Michael says, shredding the maraschino cherry on his grapefruit with the edge of a serrated spoon.

"Where, honey?" Rachel asks vaguely, sipping her tea and glancing up at her husband. Castiel waited with his breath trapped in his lungs.

"Well...we've had our rest." His father persists. "maybe it's time we headed home. Got back to normalcy." He says, raising his slate coloured eyes to Castiel's own.

Something fierce and protective revolts at that. He doesn't want to go back. More than that, he can't. How is he supposed to forget this? To lay aside the feeling of someone else's skin on his, of someone looking at him the way Dean does?

"But Daddy, we'll miss the show." Anna points out, and Castiel hopes to god he's never sounded that sycophantically naive – though he probably hopes in vain.

"Anna..."

"I was going to sing in the show." She whines. Castiel knows very well that she still has ideas about Lucifer – despite his less than delicate behaviour towards here before. He hates that fact, by more than that he wants to stay at Kellerman's. He needs to.

He places his hands on the white linen table cloth and forces his expression into meekness.

"Father, it might be pleasant to stay the full fortnight." He comments, looking up with as much conviction as he can muster. "I'm sure it won't cause any inconvenience." He says, and he hopes the banality of the remark passes his mother and sister by. Its purpose being purely to say that he will not cause grief or trouble – he will not lose any more of his father's faith in him.

Never mind that this is becoming a painfully dull chore that is keeping him from what he really wants to do. His own family are a pallid puppet theatre, unreal to him as the table cloth and the chilled grapefruit halves. His mind is on Dean, his body literally aches to get back to the other cabin, to remove his starched shirt and slacks and curl naked in the Edenic sensation of bare skin on bare, warm skin.

A tingle runs up his spine, and his body floods with a sensation akin to that of wrapping up in blankets and sipping warm tea when one has a chill. A feeling that makes him feel at once exposed and curiously safe.

He'd like very much to leave now.

But his father holds his gaze for a while longer, as if trying to dig out of him a promise in blood that he would not do anything more to disgrace his family. Whatever doxy his father believes him to have engaged himself with, Castiel is being instructed, must be permanently wiped from his mind. He tries to arrange his face into a placating expression. He could of course have dissuaded such a casual liaison easily – but Dean, solid, warm, inescapably present Dean – was more real to him than any member of the fairer sex, and far more indispensible.

"We are paid up until then." His mother adds, bringing a curious John Kellerman across to their table.

"Not thinking of cutting out early I hope?" he greets them pleasantly. "The weather'll get better, I can practically swear."

"I guess not." Michael concedes gracefully, returning to his grapefruit. Castiel breathes a very quiet, internal, sigh of relief.

For the first time he has something beneath his surface – some secret that is his and not just someone else's. He has a hidden side like the round, black surface of the moon's reverse. A part of him that is all his own, and yet belongs to Dean as well. He prickles with excitement, energy...with the promise that both will be utilised and fulfilled.

His father, busy stripping sour flesh from the pith of the fruit before him, has yet to let him off of the hook.

"So, Castiel, what do you plan on doing with yourself today."

Castiel rolls a neat tongue of bacon and spears it with his fork.

"I have dance lessons booked."

His father masticates the block of pale yellow citrus fruit thoughtfully, looking at Castiel speculatively.

"With..."

Castiel shrugs. "One of the instructors."

His father is clearly struggling to relate his concern over Castiel's activities and his desire that they should not be repeated with the implication that Castiel is ready to settle back into prescribed activities.

"I'll be back for dinner." Castiel assures him, slipping as much reassurance into that sentence as possible. He is still part of the family, he tries to make his words read, he is still loyal to them.

His father seems satisfied.

And if, an hour after finishing his eggs and dabbing the side of his mouth with his napkin, Castiel is on his way to visit Lisa – it does nothing to make him feel guilty. He goes with a genuine wish to see how the woman is after her pitiable appearance the previous evening, and he hasn't dared to ask his Father.

In tennis shoes and grey linen slacks he walks quickly through the resort, only slowing when he reaches the staff areas and the slope down towards the cabins. He's hoping to pay a quick visit to Lisa, in an attempt to make amends for sending her to the awful man who'd hurt her so completely – but he has no idea if she'll be remotely interested in seeing him.

The rain from the previous night has cleared, the steady flow of water having turned the gritty path into a river, and paint flakes having been scoured from the staff cabins to litter the damp ground like fragments of bone. Castiel takes the steps to Lisa's rooms nervously, tapping at the door before pushing it open gingerly.

Lisa is sitting up in bed, wrapped in a pink blanket and drinking something out of a steaming mug. Still pale and weak seeming, she does at least have the benefit of a nights rest in her skin and eyes – no longer appearing as corpse like as she had done before. She smiles slightly in greeting when Castiel ducks his head hello.

"Castiel, it's good to see you." She says quietly.

"I came to apologise." He says simply, "Lisa...I can't begin to tell you, how sorry I am."

She looks taken aback. "Oh...god, it's ok...you didn't know." She lays a hand on the bed as if reaching out. "I didn't know – and it's going to be ok, don't worry." She smiles. "Your father says I can still have children...he's an excellent doctor...a good man."

Castiel nods his thanks, not trusting himself with a verbal response. Lisa's eyes slide to the other corner of the room.

"Dean was just telling me about the Sheldrake yesterday...you did good, great even." She smiles.

Castiel turns and spots Dean, he feels his body at once flush and go still. Dean shuffles awkwardly, glances down at his feet, then back up at him. Castiel tries not to feel hurt at his distance, to not doubt himself over it.

Lisa looks between them.

"Dean?" she asks, and there's a certain sharpness in her voice, a knowledge that makes Castiel feel exposed and small.

"I'll...I should get back to my family." He says. "I'm glad you're ok." he adds, to Lisa, before he shunts open the swollen plywood door and trips down the porch steps to rest his back against the wall at the bottom.

Inside the cabin, Lisa fixes Dean with a stare stronger than a police flashlight.

"You're still doing this, huh?"

Dean crosses his arms and glowers back.

"It's not like before." He says, voice quiet and meaningful. "It's not just a...pieve of fun for him, he means it."

Lisa's gaze is half anger, half pity.

"Dean...you have to stop this now – before one of you gets hurt or both of you get found out." She says firmly. "It'll only be worse for him if he..."

"If he actually likes me, instead of wanting to keep me a secret from his wife?" Dean spits. "Yeah, I know." He sighs, and his anger deflates as suddenly as it appeared. "Get better, ok? I'll handle this."

Dean slams out of the cabin, forcing the door shut with more effort than he'd intended before he leans heavily on the porch rail and lowers his head, sighing in frustration. He glances to his left, only to spot Castiel, frozen against the side of the cabin, looking awkward as hell.

"I thought you'd be in there longer." Castiel says quietly.

Dean straightens up and rubs a hand over his face. "You want to come back with me?" he nods in the direction of his cabin, away from the others. Castiel hesitates, then nods and Dean hops down the steps, wrapping an arm briefly around the other man's waist to pull him closer, sharing a snatch of body heat under the grim sky.

"You don't waste time – must run in the family."

It's Lucifer. Of course it would be, snarking at them from his own cabin in his white vest and dark slacks, leaning on the porch rail and haloed in blue cigarette smoke. Castiel flinches, both at the insult to himself and to his sister, but Dean outright stiffens at his side, like a dog in a thunderstorm.

"How will the good doctor take the news?" Lucifer calls out again. "That his only son's a candy assed fa-"

Dean's sprinting over the gravel before Castiel can register the nausea of impending conflict. He reaches the porch of Lucifer's cabin, hands on the rail, leg swinging up and over before the other man has time to respond to the threat, which is essentially that of a loosed Doberman.

Dean's fist strikes Lucifer once, twice, and he's hauling off for a third punch when another dancer leaps up onto the edge of the porch and grabs his arm, pulling him away as Lucifer scrabbles on the floor, blood pouring from his nose and setting his white vest alight with colour.

Castiel has never witnessed an actual fight before.

Red faced and still obviously pounding with anger, Dean storms away from the fallen form of Lucifer and the other dancer, who is making no move to help him, much to Castiel's vitriolic satisfaction. Dean is shaking with anger and Castiel acts without conscious thought, raising his arms and pulling Dean down until the other man's forehead is resting on his shoulder, Castiel's arms around his waist. Over Dean's shoulder Castiel can see the other dancer looking at them with mild distrust and discomfort – but not outright hatred.

_That's something at least_, he thinks tiredly.


	12. Chapter 12

_As I've said before, big, big project in the works, sorry for the brief, more spaced out updates. I'm going on an internet free, week long holiday on Saturday, so you won't be hearing from me then. Sorry _

"I fucking hate that guy." Dean growls, kicking a wave of loose music sheets and a discarded shirt across the floor of his cabin. Castiel closes the door behind them and stands uncertainly by it.

He's never seen Dean so angry before. Having taken the brunt of his dissatisfaction and pique over dancing practice, Castiel is somewhat relieved to see that actual hatred looks like on Dean's face, if only to discover that it was never truly aimed at him.

"Are you staying?" Dean wheels on him, a challenge set in his gaze. It's a challenge to more than Castiel, the other man can see as much. Dean is angry at more than Lucifer's jibes, angry at himself, at the room they're in, at seemingly the entire world.

Dean reaches Castiel first, moving faster than he is, and kisses him, fast and hard, as if Castiel's crumbling away and he's trying to get an impression of him before it happens. Castiel can feel the air in his lungs rioting, Dean's heat singing his skin. Eventually he has to twist his head to one side and gasp for air. Dean's mouth abandons his in favour of sucking at Castiel's neck.

Castiel can feel his own desire climbing, his heretofore unstimulated libido having received a jolt the previous evening. He can feel the rough push of Dean's body against his, and pushes back, insistently butting the flatness of his own body against the dancer's, rolling his hips against Dean's until they're both gasping.

Dean backs them towards the bed and Castiel loses his grasp on anything other than sensation, realising that at some point clothing has been replaced with the smooth damp catch of naked skin, that there are broad hands caressing the sensitive insides of his thighs, Castiel's blindly licking and nipping at Dean's skin, finding the peak of a nipple and laving it until Dean's strong fingers press at the base of his skull, rubbing into his scalp encouragingly.

Castiel makes an embarrassingly loud sound when Dean edges down his body, hands raking roughly against his skin, and takes him into his mouth. The first brush of lips against the head of his erection makes him groan, head rolling to one side on the mattress, the feel of Dean's lips slowly surrounding him, a soft, plush, loop of pressure that leads to the hot, wet space of his mouth – sends Castiel almost insensible, all he can do is quake and beg – crying out at each fresh sweep of Dean's tongue, at the pressure of Dean's fingers on his thighs, stroking smoothly.

Castiel's eyes are clamped shut, his mouth open to emit a strangled sound of pleasure, as Dean sucks hard on him and he flies off the edge into orgasm. His body feels like a frantic struggle has finally ended, once his orgasm is pulled from him he goes limp, feeling Dean nuzzle the warm flesh of his stomach placidly.

"You're so soft for a grown-ass man." Dean comments, mouth brushing the trembling, slight roundness of Castiel's stomach, it's skin indeed still almost pre-pubescently fine. His tone is fond, voice roughened by his attentions to Castiel's now softened cock.

Dean moves until his body is covering Castiel's, erection still insistently hard and now rubbing into the skin Dean has just been praising. Castiel opens his legs willingly, dazedly, and Dean goes slowly this time – slower even than the first time, his anger at Lucifer spent in the rush of Castiel's completion.

They lie almost still, only the rocking of Dean's hips bringing them closer together. Castiel rests his head on Dean's shoulder and strokes his hair as Dean loses himself in his body, kissing his collar bone as he relaxes into the pleasure Castiel creates in him.

Afterwards, in tangled sheets that smell now of both of them, and not just Dean alone, Castiel lies against Dean's chest with his eyes half closed, cat-like and lazy. Dean runs his hands over the disturbed peaks of dark hair on his head.

For some reason, this is when Castiel's brain decides to ruin everything.

He asks the one question that's been on his mind since Lisa's cabin, one that he knows he probably won't like the answer to.

"Do you do this a lot?" he asks quietly, and he can feel Dean instantly stiffen on the bed beneath him.

"You mean, beat the crap out of Luc? All the time." Dean says gruffly.

"I mean – do you bring many men, back here?" Castiel continues stubbornly.

"Why do you want to know?" Dean slides out of bed and steps into his discarded pants, drawing them up and fastening them quickly.

"You don't have to tell me." Castiel looks up at the ceiling, feeling his good will drain away. "I was just curious."

"Not many." Dean blusters after a short silence. "Hardly..." He bites his lip. "Look, it's not like I'm going for a record, or anything."

"Oh." Is all Castiel can say to that.

Dean rubs his chilled arms thoughtfully.

"It's not what you're thinking it is." He says after a while.

"What am I thinking?" Castiel say cautiously, rolling onto his side and sitting up to look for his shirt. Dean climbs back onto the bed and tugs the slightly resisting body of Castiel into his fabric clad lap.

"That this doesn't mean anything – it does." Dean promises. "But...the last time it meant something, I was sixteen, and my Dad kicked me out of the house for it – for being like this." Castiel goes still in his arms. "It was kind of a tough couple of years...but then I got...what do you call it? Vocational training, landed this job and..." Dean sighs. "Some of the guests, the husbands...they're like me, only they hide it. But they see me and they think I'm...they like the way I look, so they offer me something on the side, in no uncertain terms. And I figure it's only fun, it's only a week or two..."

Castiel feels sick and sad and small. "You used them."

"They used me." Dean presses his face to the soft hair at the nape of Cas's neck.

"As long as I know." Castiel says numbly. He can't believe he's been so stupid.

"But I already told you, you're different – like you didn't even know that you wanted me." Dean's hands hold him gently and Castiel can feel the warmth radiating from him. "All those other guys, and they didn't give a damn about me...and you put yourself on the line in my name before you even knew me." He breathes quietly against Castiel's neck, kissing the skin there until Castiel curls up against him, warm and snug and safe. "End of the summer? I don't think I'm going to want you to go."

Castiel rests his hands on Dean's hips, feeling the solidness of him.

He can't promise to stay.

He can't promise to write.

There's nothing he can do but touch Dean's skin and try to will the world away.


	13. Chapter 13

_Updates! Finally. This has been taunting me in incompleteness for far too long. _

They have a week, and it's not enough time.

Castiel thinks this every time they meet, and they meet with increasing frequency. At first they both try and maintain a degree of nonchalance, a pretence that they don't need each other as much as they do. They attempt to keep a degree of secrecy and to be careful of discovery. They meet only once a day for the first part of that week, both times in Dean's cabin and only for an hour.

By Wednesday neither of them can pretend that this is a casual arrangement. Dean is addicted to the way Castiel clings to him, to the way he looks at him as they lie panting on his bed, as if he has some transformative power, as if it's Dean that has changed Castiel's entire life just by entering it, making him into more of a man. Instead of the other way around.

The way they feel grows into love so fast, that it's like a painful, a strangling vine in their veins. Soon they meet twice a day, three times, and Castiel stays the night through at Dean's cabin. They snatch their time together when they can, talking, touching and sleeping together naked after strenuous sessions of increasingly desperate, possessive sex.

"Don't leave." Dean pants against the rise of Castiel's throat as the younger man arches underneath him, the carpet burning the slope of his back that the flesh of his thighs. Castiel presses his pals hard to the muscle of Dean's back, fingernails digging in and holding firm.

After they've arched and strained their last, Dean pretends to have no memory of his sudden, stunning desperation. Castiel does his best not to comment on it.

The studio where Dean teaches his dancing lessons is between the main house and Dean's own cabin, in the upstairs portion of a barn conversion. There's the large white room with its wall of mirrors and a room to the side where Dean can get changed and boil up a mug of coffee when he isn't working. At least, that was how he had worked previously.

Whilst Dean teaches the men and women of the resort how to dance, Castiel waits in the side room and reads, all the time feeling twitchy and unfocussed with discontent. In his moments without Dean Castiel finds himself snappy and disconnected, like a smoker too long deprived of a drag from his singed paper tube of leaves. He lies on the wooden bench with his shirt sleeves rolled up hair uncombed and his book lying on his abdomen. Since he met Dean is iron grip on his appearance has softened, and Castiel has noticed a feeling of...looseness in his limbs that was not there before.

Dean taps on the door when his client is gone.

"Hey, any coffee on?" he walks in, sheds his sweat dampened vest and sits on the hard wooden bench beside Castiel.

"I drank the last of it. But I could make more." Castiel sighs, eyes closed in the gloom. "How long do we have?"

"Next client's in an hour, depends when your parents want you back."

"They barely notice I'm gone." Castiel sits up. "Except my father." He frowns at his bare feet. "He still thinks I'm carrying on with a staff girl."

"I doubt he'd be reassured by the truth." Dean touches the side of Castiel's face, then kisses him, open mouthed and greedy. "Come and dance with me, I really don't care about the coffee."

He tugs Castiel out of the back room, leading him into the mirrored practice space and taking Castiel's other hand in his, spinning them into an off balance section of the mambo. There's no music to set a beat, and after a few seconds Dean wraps an arm around Castiel's back and presses further against him, grinding as they had the first night they danced at the employee cabin.

"I don't think this is an official step." Castiel murmurs, feeling Dean's thigh slip between his own.

"Are you complaining?" Dean backs him up against the cabinet with the record player on it, raising the needle up over a vinyl album with his free hand. 'Love is Strange' begins to play and Dean shifts them so that he can press Castiel into the wall beside the cabinet.

"Mickey and Sylvia...really?" Castiel smirks, swaying with the movement of Dean's body, pressing up into him and tracing his hands down Dean's back.

"It has a good rhythm." Dean lays his forehead against Castiel's and moves their hips together. Castiel leans back against the wall, the sharp twang of the instrumental does indeed have a suggestive edge. Dean's body is warm against his and his enjoys the slow raising of arousal, the repeated circling of their hips.

Dean kisses him, slow and deep.

"One hour." Castiel reminds him, as they pull apart.

Dean groans. "Stop being so damn distracting."

Castiel kisses him with markedly more force than before, and Dean touts him up, letting him wrap his legs around Dean's waist, back pressing into the wall. The needle slips to the end of the rcord and produces a blurry, scratching sound. With one hand Dean works the buttons on Castiel's shirt open, mouthing the pale skin revealed beneath the blue cloth. Castiel sighs out a breath, feeling the needy thumping of his heart against Dean's reverent mouth.

A door slams downstairs.

Dean lets Castiel's legs drop down to the floor, hurriedly going to attend the record player, setting up a new song as Castiel re-buttons his shirt and tries to make himself look like anything other than a ravaged sodomite.

Sam trots up the stairs and pauses, looking in on them.

"Hey, Castiel." He says pleasantly. "You're taking dance lessons?"

"Yes." Castiel still feels flustered, the warm imprint of Dean's body still in the process of fading from his skin.

"Huh." Sam redirects his attention to Dean. "My Father put me in charge of the end of season show, and I wanted to ask you about possibilities for the dance." Sam scratches the side of his forehead. "Because, we always seem to end up with the mambo, it might be nice to do something different."

"Really?" Castiel sees the way Dean lights up at the possibility. "Because, I've been trying something with the other dancers – it's a little more of a latin rhythm, like a two step Cuban kind of..."

Sam cuts his off sheepishly. "I was thinking more...well, since you always do the mambo, maybe you could do...the pachanga?"

Dean's jaw snaps shut with an audible click.

Castiel feels a flare of anger on his behalf.

"Great idea." Dean says coolly, "I'll get right on that."

Sam seems to sense the icy reception his idea has been greeted with. He seems to hang on the edge of wanting to push a little harder, but seems to think better of it.

"I'll see you at dinner tonight Castiel." He says instead. "I wanted to talk to you about Stanford, there are some members of the alumni staying here this summer. Anyway, have a good lesson." He grins. "Oh." He turns back to Dean. "I almost forgot – Mr Adler was asking after you earlier – something about booking some extra lessons? Maybe get back to him on that?"

"Will do." Dean grits out.

Sam departs, leaving Dean glowering after him.

"I am so sick of them telling me what to do." Dean growls, finally. "Like either of them know a thing about dance."

"I suppose the guests expect traditionalism." Castiel supplies, watching Dean pace over to the record player to end the waltz that it's churning out.

"Yeah." Dean stands with his back to him. "Well, I guess you could ask them at dinner."

Castiel feels all the warmth leave his blood.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Dean says coldly, turning to look at him. "Just that you're top table material, right Cas? You and Sam, like peas in a pod."

"And who's Adler?" Castiel asks pointedly.

Dean's eyes narrow.

"Some married asshole I slept with last year, who won't leave me alone." He's breathing heavily, "Discuss that over cocktails."

"Why are you being like this, now?" Castiel asks, upset by Dean's sudden mood change.

"Because..." Dean glances down at the floor, biting the inside of his cheek before he looks up and answers. "Sam talked to you...like I wasn't even here...and...It's not fair, ok? That if...if you and Sam were together...no one would need to know, no one could touch you. You'd just...go off to Stanford and get an apartment and...go to shitty poetry readings, and people would just take it as you boys getting along _so _well." Dean is visibly shaking with frustration. "It's not like that for me, if I take up with a guy, someone I actually want? Everyone's going to know why two low class guys are shacking up. And everyone is going to have something to say about it. They'd run us out of town as soon as we arrived."

"Dean..."

"And you." Dean continues, getting closer. "If I did what I wanted, if I went with you and lived with you, if I made sure everyone knew you were mine? Then it wouldn't just be sick to them, it'd be beneath you." He hisses the word. "Because I'm, beneath you."

The word strikes Castiel in the chest and makes his heart hammer, his breath rush in panic.

"Don't say that."

"Why not? It's true." Dean shifts his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "We've got two days Cas, and then...the idea of you leaving? Already terrifies me, and it shouldn't. I have never, needed anyone this much before, and it's not fair. Nothing about this situation is fair ok? Nothing."

"You think I'm not terrified?" Castiel murmurs.

"I think...you've got a pretty good life coming to you...and you're not going to miss this." He gestures around them, "when you go off to college and meet someone..."

"Someone what?"

"Someone like you." Dean says, voice cutting with desperation. "Someone your father won't look down on. Someone who you could at least take home as a friend, and not have them embarrass you."

"You honestly think there could be anyone else?" Castiel is trembling with anger, with frustration at this, the trap they have found themselves in. "Dean, in two days I'm going to leave here...and I am never going to feel, the rest of my whole life – the way I feel when I'm with you."

Dean approaches and Castiel lets himself be wrapped in the older man's arms. The spectre of the mysterious Adler, and of a lover Castiel has yet to even want, fade away in the face of a devotion burning so bright it blinds both of them to the now. For which they are both grateful.


	14. Chapter 14

_As always, follow me at JollySnidge on twitter for the latest updates for my stories and my other nonsensical crap. I even take requests._

It's amazing how much can change in a day.

Castiel hasn't been paying much attention to Anna recently, his own fault since the advent of Dean. Still, it comes as a surprise to him that she's still seeing Lucifer and that his father not only approves of this but is actively encouraging it. To such a degree that Lucifer is invited to eat dinner with them on the night of his dance lesson with Dean.

Lucifer is thankfully keeping quiet about Castiel's proclivities, whether out of fear of Dean or of earning Michael Novak's disfavour Castiel has no idea.

It's a slim silver lining.

After dinner the dancers come out, Dean and Lisa shaming the guests with a flawless display. Castiel watches with slight envy. Slight, because he knows Dean belongs to him more than he does to anyone else, but envy still because he can do that. He can partner Dean in a dance, not as well by any means, but he can do it, and he likes the way it feels.

He claps along with the rest of them when it's over.

A balding man approaches Dean, one of the richer guests judging from his suit and gold cufflinks. He takes Dean's elbow and Dean looks at him, Castiel catches the name 'Mr Adler' and his blood freezes.

Oh.

Dean looks up at the older man, his mouth all smiles, but his eyes are carefully blank and they don't even flicker in Castiel's direction as he laughs the hand off apologetically and backs away, leaving Mr Adler with a look of disappointment and ugly dissatisfaction on his face. Dean skirts a crowd and as soon as he's within reach of a door out onto the terrace he dodges through it, his face unshuttering to show the anger and shame underneath.

Castiel extricates himself from a conversation with Sam and some of the other guests and goes out onto the practically deserted terrace. Dean turns at his approach, his bowtie hanging undone and his top buttons opened to the humid night air. He almost reaches for Castiel, almost, but one glance at the windows running along the side of the building reminds him that this is not the time or the place for that. Instead he shoves his hands into his pockets and grows through his teeth in frustration and annoyance.

"That was Adler." It wasn't a question. Dean answers anyway.

"Yeah, he wanted..." Dean half laughs bitterly. "What he always wants...but I'm, not doing that. You know I'm not."

"I know." Castiel agrees. He waits. "How much did he offer you?" Because he'd seen the flash of green in Adler's hand, seen Dean's eyes go to the bundle of note before he got away from the older man.

"You saw that." Again not a question. Dean shakes his head dumbly. "...fifty dollars."

Castiel snorts, half amused, half angry. Angrier than he's ever been.

"What?" grunts, a defensive edge to his voice.

"You're worth more." Castiel says, feeling a sick and hopeless weight settle on him. He's leaving in two days. It's over for them in two days, and he'll become just another college boy and Dean'll go back to being a...well, perhaps whore wasn't generous enough, but he'd be with people who valued him below their sham marriages, below fifty dollars.

"Worth and value – two different things. And it all depends on demand." Dean mutters. "Thought they'd have taught you that."

"Come on." Castiel says, jerking his head away from the brightly lit ballroom and the sad spectacle of Dean bathed in moonlight.

At Dean's flat, questioning look, Castiel fixes him in the eye, feeling a familiar desperation overcome him.

"I want to be somewhere, where I can touch you. So come on." He rumbles.

They reach the line of trees and kiss roughly under the heavy pine boughs, the ground soft and dry underfoot, their shoes slithering on pine needles. Castiel's breathing is very loud in his own ears, Dean's hands leave despairing, possessing trails of heat on his skin.

It's desperation that dogs them the whole way to Dean's cabin, knowing that this might be the last time, that circumstances might come against them in the next two scant days, keeping them apart until it's too late. This might be their last night. Their last brief taste of each other, water before the 40 years of desert wandering to come.

Inside the cabin they fall on each other, casting their clothing to the floor and dragging themselves down to the floor mere feet from the bed. They shiver and rub together there on the bare boards, naked and exposed on the dark floor. Dean's hair tickles under Castiel's chin and their dry, bare feet scuffle together for purchase.

By the time they shatter apart there, pick themselves up and stumble lazily for the bed, the urgency is gone, but despair is still thick on them, like a coating of sticky, cloying pollen. With Dean on top of and within him, Castiel wraps his arms close around the other man and presses his face against his throat. He holds on until he's shaking, body coming apart all over again with pleasure and painful desperation.

Even afterwards, with Dean lying still and their bodies blushing all over with climax, Castiel cannot bring himself to loosen his hold. Gently, Dean takes his arms and slides away from him, getting out of bed silently and padding away to gather up their clothes and set them straight. Castiel watches from the bed, covered in the dappled light from the blinds on the window, warmth leeching out of him, the fight leeching out of him, until there's nothing left but the urge to sleep, to let the time pass away until he can start to forget this, this and how good it was.

Dean comes back to bed and lies down, laying his head against Castiel's chest.

"If this is it." Dean says after a while, still unused to verbalising his feelings. "If this is all we get...it was good, and...I'm glad it was you. That I knew you."

Castiel takes his hand and squeezes it in his own.

Words have never failed him, until now.

The next morning Castiel crawls out of bed, dresses in last night's clothes and leaves Dean at the door of his cabin, a kiss still burning against his mouth.

He doesn't see Zachariah Adler watching from the rest of the staff cabins, having just left Lucifer's abode. He doesn't know that Anna went to Lucifer's cabin the previous night and saw Adler with Lucifer. Castiel will never know that because it's not his story.

A lot can change in a day. Especially where greed and anger come into play.

When Castiel hears the accusation, over breakfast with his family, it comes from the mouth of John Kellerman, and it very near turns his stomach.

"It's always a shame when you learn one of your staff can't be trusted." The elder Kellerman sighs, jabbing at a cut of sausage and making conversation with Castiel's father.

"What happened John?"

"There've been thefts all summer, petty stuff at first, wallets, watches...but it's gotten so bad I've had the cops here and guests leaving...now I find out it's one of my own."

"A waiter?" Anna asks, her cheeks flushing even as she asks, with disturbed knowledge.

"A dancer." John sneers. "Could have been worse but...you take these kids in when they've got nothing, you give 'em a job and roof over their heads, and how do they repay you? By biting the hand that feeds first chance they get, suck the rings off your fingers and pawn 'em once they're done."

Castiel's guts clench in expectation of the worst, when it strikes it feels like a snake bite, or how he might imagine a snake bite. Pain and then icy numbness, wrong and painful in and of itself.

"Dean. Winchester." John announces. "Delinquent with an attitude problem a mile wide. Tell you the truth, I'll be glad to get rid of him. Zach Adler says he saw him stealing wallets last night, after the show."

"It wasn't him." Castiel speaks without meaning to, icy numb lips spilling his secret uncontrollably.

Everyone at the table looks at him, his Father hardest of all.

"Well...it wasn't." Castiel says.

"What makes you say that?" John sputters, half smiling mockingly. "He tried to tell me he'd been in his room all night, reading. Like he owns a book."

"But he was." Castiel exclaims. "Dean isn't a thief."

"Quiet, Castiel." His mother tells him.

"But it's not true." Castiel growls.

"That's enough." His father snaps. "I'm sorry John."

Castiel sucks in a breath and lets loose the secret he knows will damn them both, but he has no choice, Dean'll lose his job if he doesn't, he might even go to jail. The urgency is so complete that he doesn't even stop to consider what will happen to himself, or that Dean will probably get fired anyway.

Desperation. It's blinding as it is possessive.

"Dean was in his room, all night." He says slowly. "And the reason I know, is because I was with him. The whole night."

John Kellerman's mind does not go towards the truth. What he imagines is a poker game, maybe girls, drinking, music and debauchery. He thinks little of Castiel but not so little that he would instantly think him queer.

His mother and sister look equally disapproving and shocked, not seeing the wood for the trees.

Not so his father.

Michael looks at his son, the dreadful weight of knowledge settling in him like tainted food.

"Father..." Castiel sees the light in his eyes go out, replaced by something hectic and dark. "Father, I'm so sorry..."

"Michael..." his mother's questioning voice follows him as Castiel is heaved bodily from his chair by his father, dragged through the dining room by his arm and out into the light of day. All the way back to the cabin they go in silence, until Michael throws the door open and pushes Castiel forwards, not stopping until they're in his room. He seizes Castiel's suitcase and throws it on the bed.

"Pack."

Castiel has held his shocked and frightened tears at bay until now, unbidden they slide from his eyes and run downwards, his Father looks at him with disgust, appalled at the softness of his son.

"Pack. Now." He demands, picking up a handful of shirts and sweaters from a chair and hurling them into the case.

"Father, please..."

Michael strikes him across the face with the flat of his palm, rocking Castiel's head sideways and causing the taste of blood to flare in his mouth.

"You, are not my son." Michael spits bitterly.

Castiel looks at him, his face completely white save for the pink splotch on his cheek. Colourless tears still falling down his face.

"I want you gone. I don't care where, but before the hour's up I don't want one thing of yours left under this roof." Michael snaps, his face red with rage and his body trembling with disgust. "You are not to go home. You are not to talk to my wife or Anna. Take your things, and leave."

Castiel stays frozen.

"Now!" Michael shouts at him, and Castiel turns with shaking hands to attend to his case, packing clothes in a disjointed kind of way, not really believing, despite himself, that his father would seriously disown him so suddenly, casting him away with barely any of his things or any support to speak of.

He takes his clothes from the closet under Michael's glare and packs them, the books from the bedside table, including the one he'd been reading as they arrived in the car. It seemed like so long ago. When he had nothing left to pack he hesitates before closing the case and fixing the clasps shut.

He stands limply by the bed.

"Now take it and get out." Michael mutters, the rage having dampened down to hard determination.

"Where will I go?" Castiel asks, shocked at how small his voice is.

"I don't care." Michael bites out. "Out of my sight and away from my family."

"I am your family." Castiel's voice catches.

His father seizes his arm and drags him from the bedroom, the suitcase in his other hand. He throws Castiel out of the front door and drops the suitcase into the dirt after him with a heavy 'thunk'.

"If you speak to any of us, I will have your bank account emptied, then you'll have nothing." Michael huffs, getting his breath back. "I'll contact Stanford and tell them you'll no longer be attending."

"Father..."

Michael slams the door and walks away, back towards the main house.

"Please, don't do this to me..." Castiel's mind races, and he almost follows his father back to the dining room. Almost.

He has no money with him, save the hundred dollars or so in his own bank account. He needs that money if he is to leave and have any hope of survival.

He watches his father go with a kind of surreal desperation in him.

His life has just walked away from him.

He is no longer Castiel Novak, his father is not his father. His mother is a stranger. His sister, merely a girl, one of thousands.

He is no longer Castiel Novak.

He imagines a bird's eye view of the world, his speck blowing away in a stiff breeze, his name and possessions with it. He has ceased to exist.


	15. Chapter 15

_As always, follow me at JollySnidge on twitter for the latest updates for my stories and my other projects. I have a kind of announcement concerning 'Me and Mine' coming soon, so watch that space. _

Castiel has no idea what to do. This scenario, this choice, has been forced on him and he has never considered anything like it. His family doesn't want him, he can't go home, he's going to be kicked out of college before he even attends.

He has no plans, no goals and no one at all.

Then of course there's Dean.

Academically Castiel knows that Dean is probably getting fired as he himself stands by his family's cabin with all his world possessions in a suitcase at his side. He just doesn't know if Dean, freshly unemployed, shoved back into poverty, outed as a deviant and alone in the world – would be happy to see him.

He doesn't know what to do. He's also really afraid that his father is going to come back and find him, frozen outside the locked door, like a stray dog too stupid to run away.

He's terrified that he's going to start crying.

Just putting one foot in front of the other is hard, Castiel picks up the case and carries it along with him. He persuades himself that he's just going to leave the cabin and go somewhere private to think, but when he reaches the tree line he can't think of a place to sit, or a reason to stop walking. So he doesn't he keeps going.

He drags his case all the way down through the woods until he's fairly certain that he's lost his way, but that's no reason to worry because he has nothing to find his way back to.

He's certain that if he stops walking, he will just sit down, on his case and stay there until it's night. He'll stay there until he sleeps because he can't hold his eyes open anymore. He'll stay until he dies.

Castiel keeps walking, because he knows if he stops, no one will find him.

He's barely an adult, he has no idea what he's doing, where he'll stop when he eventually needs to rest. He feels like shouting it, trying to draw the attention of God or whoever, to tell them that he doesn't know – he doesn't know what to do and if he did, he could just get on and do it. He could become someone other than Castiel Novak, he could be somewhere else, instead of nowhere.

He can't help but notice as he walks through swishing ferns and tides of leaf ghosts, that it's getting dark. The sun is already blocked by the tall pines but the light is getting dimmer. He's been walking all day, he realises. It's getting dark and he hasn't eaten since his aborted breakfast. He has no money, no food and no place to go.

Castiel stops.

He listens to the whooping of birds, the crackle of branches. Silence underneath it all.

He opens the case and pulls out his crumpled trench coat, he puts it on and sits down at the foot of a tree, looking at his closed suitcase and wondering where he's going to go once he's rested, what he's going to become.

He only closes his eyes once, only once, because he's so tired and so cold.

But when he opens them again it's dark.

Castiel scrunches in on himself, he can't bring himself to close his eyes again, not when anything could be out there in the dark.

Right then and right there, he feels small and stupid and naive. He's walked, idiotically far, gotten himself lost and worsened his already poor situation into something laughable.

Part of him wants to laugh at himself.

The rest is still struggling to understand how his Father could stop loving him. Just like that.

"CAS!"

Castiel flinches upright, stiff and cold and blinking away the remnants of more embarrassing tears.

"CAS! You out here?"

It's Dean. Of course it's Dean. Castiel isn't really surprised by the relief that goes through him. He wishes already that he'd just gone to him, but it was hard to think, it's still hard to think, with his head feeling as distant as it is, with despair lapping at his heels. He'd been trying to outrun the truth of his situation, and he'd failed.

"I'm over here." Castiel says, just as Dean thrashes through the brush and into the clearing. The other man starts at the sound of Castiel's voice and then trudges towards him, boots scuffing the ground under his damp jean cuffs.

"Thank Christ." Dean drops down to his heels in front of him. "I've been looking for you, for hours."

Dean's eyes are filled with a wild kind of worry, a bruise blooming over his jaw.

"What happened to your face?" Castiel asks.

"When John told me I was fired he let slip that you'd told your parents...so when I went looking for you I tried to ask your sister where you were." He looks down ruefully. "Your Dad popped me one in the jaw."

"I'm sorry." Unbidden another tear rolls down Castiel's face. He scrubs at it, irritated. "I was stupid and now they've kicked me out and..." Another trail of water falls down his cheek. "I can't stop..."

Dean pulls him into a strong hug, muttering somewhere near his ear.

"Hey, when my folks kicked me out, I balled like a baby. It's ok." He rubs Castiel's back in soothing circles. "I'm going to take care of you, you know that."

Castiel nods against his shoulder.

"Why didn't you just come to me, eh?" Dean runs his fingers through Castiel's hair, making it bristle up and then smooth back down.

"I didn't know how you'd feel about me." Castiel wriggles ashamedly. "I mean, I don't have any money and I'm a mess...and crying...so I just, started walking."

"Cas, I have no money. I've never had any." Dean says roughly. "I'm homeless, unemployed and my family hates my guts...I understand what you're going through, believe me." He kisses his forehead quickly.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologise to me." Dean tells him gruffly, "Look, I have until tomorrow morning to pack my shit up and get out of this place...so let's go back to my cabin and sort this out, get you warmed up and...think of something."

Castiel lets Dean take his hand and pull him to his feet, though he insists on carrying his own case. As they trudge back through the woods Dean pauses occasionally to touch Castiel's hand and shoulder, as if reassuring himself that he's still there.

"What do you want to do?" He asks quietly.

"I don't know." Castiel says, and it feels like the billionth time he's thought it.

Dean glances down awkwardly as they keep walking.

"So...um...when I go, wherever I'm going...you want to come with me?"

"Yes." Castiel says softly. "I'd...I'd like that."

Another short silence is broken only by the rustling of leaves.

"Because of who I am, or what I do to you?" Dean asks eventually.

Castiel falters to a stop.

"I'm...I didn't mean to say that." Dean shakes his head.

"You'd don't need to ask me that." He turns to Dean, feeling anger for the first time since breakfast. "Don't. Ask. Me. That."

"Sorry." Dean mutters.

"No." Castiel lets out a frustrated breath. "No, I understand, why you want to ask. Because...idiots...bastards...used you. But you don't need to ask. Because, what you do to me, is not part of _why _I let you."

Dean looks at him for a moment, then steps towards him, moulding their mouths together. Castiel holds onto him tightly, closing his eyes to the surrounding darkness.

By the time they make it back to the cabin it is almost dawn. Only a matter of hours remain for them to make their way away from Kellerman's and Dean enlists Castiel's help in packing his few possessions.

Castiel, now that he's anchored with Dean and feeling more like himself, can bring himself to understand the situation he's in. Still lost, still cast out, but maybe not alone, not really.

When someone knocks on Dean's door they both exchange glances before Dean edges forwards tentatively and opens the door of the cabin.

Sam Kellerman is standing outside.

He looks at Dean, then into the cabin itself at Castiel. Sam looks both awkward and pitying and the combination does nothing to soothe Dean's animosity, no longer bound by his desire to remain employed.

"The hell do you want?" He growls.

Sam shifts nervously before holding up a piece of paper and an envelope. Dean takes them slowly, his glare not lessening as he looks in the envelope and finds a bundle of notes.

"And this is for?"

"It's what my Father owes you for the season, plus your bonus." Sam says, eyes falling to Castiel again. "He doesn't know I'm giving it to you – that..." he says as Dean reads the piece of paper. "Is the address of another resort, across the country...they're looking for an entertainment manager...I've given you a good reference and they agreed to take you on." Sam recites as if he's learnt the speech by heart, maybe he has.

"Why are you doing this?" Dean demands.

"I'm not doing it for you." Sam glares at him. "Castiel...I'm sorry for what's happened...I'm sorry it came to this."

"Thank you Sam." Castiel can see how much the other man wants to leave, and even though Sam is still a relative stranger, Castiel had counted him as an equal, perhaps even a friend. The rejection stings, though not as much as he aches over his Father's disgust.

"Thank you." Dean says, and it clearly costs him a lot, but he manages.

Sam vanishes without a smile.

"So I guess we're set." Dean sighs, thumbing through the notes again.

"We are." Castiel agrees.

"You still don't look happy." Dean says, all the anger and bravado he'd contained in Sam's presence fading out of him.

"Give me time." Castiel tells him.

They load the car up with their cases and Dean slides into the driver's seat. Castiel, dressed now in jeans and a shirt under one of Dean's heavy sweaters, takes the passenger seat. As Dean pulls away from the cabin, Castiel touches his hand where it lies on the gear shift.

The car shakes and jumps over the rutted track, up towards the smoother road by the guest cabins. The sun's been up for a while as they pass the cabin that houses Castiel's family. His Father is on the deck in his pyjamas and bathrobe, his mother beside him. Castiel sees his father's mouth tighten in a hard line at the sight of Castiel in the car, heading away. When Rachel starts to move towards them, her husband takes her arm and holds her back. She stops moving and looks away from the car.

Dean drives on.

They reach the main road and pick up speed, driving the same way Castiel's family had entered in their ford. The semi-familiar territory flashes past the window and Castiel realises that he's very, very tired. He leans his head against Dean's shoulder and closes his eyes, feeling the light pressure of Dean's mouth against the top of his head, a brief brush before he turns his attention back to the road.

"Do you think..." Castiel says softly, on the cusp of falling asleep. "That if we came but here, for our thirtieth anniversary...they'd let us dance on the main floor?"

Dean is silent so long that Castiel thinks he's not going to answer his bizarre question. Then, just before he drifts into sleep, he hears Dean's response.

"We'll just have to try it and see."


	16. Chapter 16

_I couldn't help myself, this just begged to be written. As always, follow me at JollySnidge on twitter for the latest update. See my profile for a link to my novel 'Me and Mine' on amazon._

A pile of dry wall skitters to the ground.

"Watch it!" Someone booms from behind the partition. Castiel winces at the noise. A sledgehammer pounds away and dust blooms into the air.

"Cas? You ok?" Dean calls from across the room.

"Fine!" Castiel yells back.

"I'm almost done." Dean shouts. He's talking to a man in a sweat stained vest. The other man, in paint spattered jeans, continues to reduce the wall to rubble and flakes of plaster.

"There." Dean walks over, his dark clothes a little dusty, hair peppered white. "We should be good by the end of next week."

"Good." Castiel echoes. "It looks..."

"Like a bomb hit? Yeah – but I'll make it better, I swear." Dean looks around at the peeling paint, cracked wood floor and spider web strewn ceiling.

"I believe you." Castiel murmurs, touching his hand.

"Come on, let's go for a walk." Dean leads him back into the open air, the parking lot where the Chevy is still loaded with their possessions. Beyond that is woodland, and Dean and Castiel walk down over a partially overgrown wood chipped path. They walk through dripping foliage and onwards down to a gravel covered lot strewn with debris – a white window frame, broken glass, fragmented clapboard and a shattered white china lamp, its cord a dull brown snake on the ground.

"Jesus." Dean breathes. "Guess we're lucky there are still walls up at the house."

"Come on." Castiel tugs him lightly and they walk away from the destruction.

Up the hill is a vacant square of turned earth, metal rods protruding from clumps of malformed concrete.

"Think they salted the earth?" Dean asks.

"Maybe." Castiel looks at the patch thoughtfully. He walks onto it and looks amongst the shreds of wood and sprouts of tatty glass. He picks up a gold tube that had once contained a lipstick. It looks familiar, though rusted now. It could have been anyone's.

"You keeping that?" Dean asks as Castiel puts it in his pocket.

Castiel looks at him, runs a hand over his greying hair to keep it out of his eyes.

"I lost my virginity here – I want a memento."

"I thought I was your memento." Dean grouses.

"You're my lover - memento's fit in pockets." Castiel informs him. "We should get back."

"Yeah...it's kind of a blow though." Dean says as they start walking back towards the main house. "I thought...after all this time it might be like it used to be – like I'd just stepped away."

"That's my romantic spirit rubbing off on you." Castiel sighs. "You should have knows it'd have gone to crap without you here. What's Kellerman's without Dean Winchester?"

"A load of boring people drinking wine in cocktail wear." Dean chuckles. He glances at the wet, vibrant forest. "Want to do it in the woods? Just for old time's sake?"

Castiel glares at him.

"I was just being nostalgic." Dean mutters.

"I want to make a good impression on everyone...I can't do that all bruised and covered in mud."

"You made a good impression on me all bruised and covered in lipstick." Dean points out.

"Ah to be young again." Castiel raises an eyebrow as they continue their walk.

In the parking lot a truck has turned up and two men are parting the canvas on a large board, underneath the covering are the words, 'Winchester Summer Resort – Opening Summer 1997'.

Dean smiles and turns to Castiel, kissing him gently. The two workmen don't even bat an eye.

"It's going to be a good year." Dean grins. "I can feel it – two months time and we'll be waltzing on the main floor."

Castiel smiles at him, kisses him lightly.

"Happy anniversary." He murmurs.


End file.
